IoCreateSymbolicLink and semicolon in name

NTFSD
1

Hi,

A quick question. Some 3rd party Network Redirectors register a symlink to the mapped network drive with a semicolon separated instance information. For instance VMware shared folders:

Z: SymbolicLink -> \Device\HGFS;z:0000000000000012345\vmware-host\Shared Folders

Parallels Desktop:

Z: SymbolicLink -> \Device\PrlMoniRdr;Z:\psf\data

Is the semicolon (:wink: character of any special importance? Is it parsed in any special way or is it just mere coincidence that everyone is separating these with semicolon?

Thanks,
Antoni

2

That mapping is also done by MS redirectors as well. At least it was common in Windows XP.
And yes, whatever is after "\Device\HGFS", is passed tot he device object as-is. What the device does with it is entirely its business.

3

However, I think that MUP also does some parsing that involves the ā€˜;ā€™ so Iā€™m not sure that you could for example replace it with a different character.

Thanks,
Alex.

4

Many thanks!

Antoni