In MS-DOS, several special "device files" were available to aid in performing certain tasks, such as clearing the screen or deleting extraneous output from a program. In order to maintain backwards-compatibility, all versions of Windows up to and including Windows 7 will refuse to allow you to create a file with these "reserved" device file names. The following file names are reserved:
CON, incidentally, was a device file used to capture whatever was printed onscreen.
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