[xplorer˛] — Impossible paths
home » blog » 17 April 2011


"There's nothing more unfair than equal treatment of unequals" — Aristotle

Everybody knows what a folder path like C:\Users\nikos\Desktop means (WAGS this way please :). Here are a few more unusual path formats you may or may not have heard before. Try them out in your xplorer˛ addressbar!

  • \\hppro. UNC path to access computer on the network called 'hppro'. You can dig into all shared folders
     
  • ::{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}. Recycle bin. All special folders like My Computer etc have such unique names
     
  • shell:appdata. One of the known shell folders. Another take on traditional environmental variables like
    %WINDIR%.
     
  • ftp://username:password@somesite.com. Login and manage remote FTP folder like a local folder. Not recommended if you value security.
     
  • http://filecrop.com/favicon.ico. Access file in some website... Pardon?

The last path looks like an internet URL, which it is. It won't work in xplorer˛ unless it is setup as a remote webfolder. But it still works in tools that open files. Think about it, you can access a file on the internet like as if it was stored on your computer. But it only works in the read-only fashion. Try it yourself, open paint.NET or mspaint and using File > Open menu specify this path:
http://filecrop.com/favicon.ico

I admit that most of these strange paths have merely curiosity value and not much utility. But perhaps you can think of something useful?

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