Student, smart about computers, accidentally learns about reserved folder names

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Last night, 10-year-old Raymond Wang was using a Windows XP computer at home when he accidentally typed one of the reserved names. He was using “Run”, which he had been playing with as a hobby since December. Normally, to open a file using the “Run” command, you must type the full address. However, for certain important folders, such as “C:\Windows” and “C:\Windows\System32”, the directory can be omitted. For certain file extensions, the extension can be omitted as well, including the “.exe” suffix used for executable files such as “calc.exe” (Windows Calculator), “cmd.exe” (Command Prompt), and “spider.exe” (Spider Solitaire). As a result, these files can be opened by typing “Calc,” “Cmd,” and “Spider,” respectively. Typing “Control” also opens the Windows Control Panel. “Notepad.exe” is the Notepad application. In the days leading up to Christmas break, coinciding with the week of Raymond’s tenth birthday, he accidentally made the “Desktop” and the “My Documents” folder the same folder, named “Can” (as in “You can do this”). On Christmas afternoon, December 25, 2006, he spent a lot of time on the computer in his basement at home, looking through the “System32” folder to see what “EXE” files he could find. Other EXE files in that folder include, but are not limited to, “Finger,” “Net,” and “Fontview.” The file “Logoff.exe,” when opened, automatically causes the user to log off, and “Shutdown” can be used to force the system to shut down. “Taskmgr.exe” is the “Task Manager.” He had a lot of fun playing with his computer, and sometimes, he would create copies of the Windows Calculator file in random folders, believing that he could get a physical handheld calculator if someone were to open the hard drive; presumably, this won’t happen until someday in the far future (at least, say, a year from now), long after this computer stops working.

Raymond and his 7-year-old brother Bryan are in an interesting situation when it comes to their current schools. Or at least until about three weeks ago. In 2005, the Fiske Elementary School closed for over a year, and all students and teachers temporarily relocated to 146 Maple Street, Lexington, Massachusetts, which is normally the office building for Lexington Public Schools. The official name of that building is Lexington Public Schools Administrative Offices. However, for two years, this building ceased its normal operations so Fiske students and teachers could use it as a school until the real Fiske building reopened. Bryan goes to the Harrington Elementary School at 328 Lowell Street, which is in the same parking lot as 146 Maple Street. When Ray began the fourth-grade school year last September, he was in the Maple Street building. His first day at the new school was September 6, 2006. That day, he felt nervous to be there, but he couldn’t figure out why. He felt like something wasn’t right or that something was missing, but he couldn’t identify it. Later that morning, his teacher, Mollie Chamberlain, figured it out and said, “Are you nervous to be here?” In that moment, Ray realized that was the reason. Ray nodded his head yes. He didn’t know why he was upset, and he had been trying to figure that out for the past 2-3 hours since he got to school that morning. Ray, who normally enjoys going to school, couldn’t remember another time he felt this way. From that point onwards, Ray quickly adapted to his new school, and he no longer felt nervous about being there. On Tuesdays, he had occupational therapy at 9:00 a.m. with Mrs. Opal. On Tuesday, October 17, 2006, Ray and Mrs. Opal walked to Harrington to borrow something to use in their session that morning. And no, as far as we can tell, Bryan didn’t see them during their brief visit. Raymond’s last day at Fiske on Maple Street was Thursday, February 15, 2007. He got two extra days of vacation because Friday 2/16 and Monday 2/26 were both “staff only” days. When school resumed on Tuesday, February 27, he got on the bus as usual, but he went to the new location, the building that had been closed for two years: 55 Adams Street, Lexington, MA. Interestingly enough, on the route to the Adams Street location, the bus happens to pass by the Maple Street location. The bus turns from Lillian Road onto Lowell Street, and it stays on Lowell Street until the intersection of Lowell Street and East Street, therefore passing by Harrington School and the previous Fiske location. In a nutshell: “To get to the new Fiske, they pass by the old one.” Ray took the bus with Suzanne Coy that morning. Suzanne and Mollie are two of his “homeroom teachers,” the third one being Nancy Cassidy. And yes, coincidentally, all three teachers have “C” surnames (Coy, Chamberlain, and Cassidy). This year, Ray has a male teacher for fourth grade, and his name is Andrew Halfond, whom he and other students refer to as “Mr. Halfond.”

Anyways, back to last night, the night of Monday, March 5, 2007. Last night, at about 9:30 p.m. EST, he was playing with “Run” on one of the computers upstairs at home. He was trying to type “Cmos” or “Com,” but he accidentally typed “Con” instead. He got an unusual error message. Instead of the generic “Windows cannot find ____” message, he got a very peculiar error message: “This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Create an association in the Folder Options control panel.” Ray was scared, but he figured it was no big deal as he could simply go to the desktop, create a folder named “Con,” then move it to a system folder in the “Windows” directory. Unfortunately, when he tried that, upon typing “Con” and pressing “Enter,” it silently reverted to “New Folder.” That is why “Con” is yellow pee. He went to Google to search for why Windows was making such a strange reaction to this particular “C” word, and he learned that it was a reserved device name. There were several other ones, all having three letters, but “Con” is the only one that is also an English word. In that moment when Windows silently rejected “Con” as a name, it triggered an image in his head. Luckily, this was not a real memory and never actually happened to him. In this image, he is at school and in the hall with a female teacher, possibly Mollie Chamberlain, and when Ray tries to go to the boys’ bathroom, Mollie walks behind him to close the door, blocking it, and preventing him from using the bathroom, wanting him to pee in his pants instead. Although this, thankfully, never happened, it is the combination of two real memories:

In October and November 2006, Ray was often quite naughty and aggressive to other students and teachers at school, so there were plenty of school days in which some, most, or all of the day was spent in the time-out room in the school’s basement. His three teachers (Suzanne Coy, Mollie Chamberlain, and Nancy Cassidy), who coincidentally all have “C” surnames, made a “trust” system in which Ray had to earn back trust to go in the hallway, even to use the bathroom. One time, on Friday, November 10, when Ray finally earned back “bathroom trust” through good work and good behavior, Mollie said, “Now, you can use the bathroom if you need to,” with emphasis on the word “now.”
The other memory happened on April 14, 2003. That was a Monday. It was the last week of school before April break. Ray was six at the time. Like most Mondays, he took the bus to school and went to school for six hours. There are many days on which Raymond Wang didn’t pee in his pants, but 4/14/2003 wasn’t one of them. 4/14/2003 is yellow pee. During school that day, Raymond was sent to the time-out room at about 1:30 p.m., and he stayed there for the rest of the day. At the end of the day, at 2:44 p.m., Ray ran back to the classroom bathroom, but it was time to go. The teacher said, in a comforting voice, “It’s okay, there’s no blood.” The bus dropped him off at Evan’s house. Bryan had been friends with Evan for months; both boys were three at the time. At 5:20 p.m., Evan’s mom said, “Do you want butter?” Ray said yes, and she made the sandwich for him, composed of two slices of bread and Country Crock butter between them. Ray went to the living room and played Snapshot Safari on the VTech console; he went to the page with the map and touched “North America,” “Africa,” and “Asia.” About 5 minutes later, Dad arrived to pick up Ray and his brother, Bryan, who was three at the time. It took two minutes to get home, as the houses are so close, but during the ride, the two boys shared the sandwich, taking turns. Then, a funny coincidence happened. Right as Dad got onto the driveway, Ray swallowed the final bite and peed in his pants. Ray tossed the pants and rushed inside to change his clothes, then went down to the living room. Then, Dad, Ray, and Bryan read books about Easter, which happened 6 days later on Sunday, April 20, 2003.