Skip to main content
1 of 6
Dirk Boer
  • 1.5k
  • 2
  • 10
  • 11

On my Windows machine I had a folder with a name of four dots - that acted like some kind of rabbithole - how did that happen?

The folder name was listed in Explorer with just plain four dots .....

When I tried opening it I came into some kind of endless rabbithole loop where I opened the exact same folder again and again - I could do this endlessly. Showing the path like C:\ExamplePath\....\....\....\...\.... etc

It was hanging my TypeScript compilation in one specific project. It took me more then a year before I found this folder and it's related problems, because it was rooted deep in nested folders. I never expected an issue like this, so I never looked for it.

I couldn't delete the folder the the normal ways because of the special name. In the end I could remove it by using CommandLine and deleting the parent folder with rd /s /q path.

I tried to create the folder afterwards again, but was unable to do so with both Explorer and Command line.

In my >20 years of using Windows I've never seen this bug before, and I can imagine it can be really annoying and confusing problem for amateur users.

Does anyone know how this could have happened and how to reproduce this issue?

Dirk Boer
  • 1.5k
  • 2
  • 10
  • 11