Windows 7: Folder Naming Issues

Hello,

I installed an application in a folder named Blue Music.
It functions as expected.
I installed another app in a folder named Blue. Both in C.
The system doesn't seem to let the app in Blue run until I do something to
distinguish the folder name from the first four characters of the app folder Blue Music.

This isn't happening in XP but there must be a protocol preventing functionality in a folder whose name is also the first part of another folder name.

Anyone familiar with this?

I'm guessing there is a protocol so I tried removing the folder Blue Music. deleted.
Yet the app in Blue still doesn't function until I do something to the name, such as Blue 2. Then all is well.

So, I'm guessing the protocol registers folder names somewhere to manage this. I'd like to be able to access that and manage it myself.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Bill

How are you running it? And what happens when you try to run it? Nothing? An error msg?

Also you have zero system specs filled out. Makes for a lot of wasteful Q&A later on.

Hi Miles,
Thanks for your interest.
I'll try to fill you in. Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64 bit 4GB Ram Toshiba Satellite AMD E300.
When I try to run the exe in Folder Blue, the mouse pointer starts to indicate activity and then reverts to being just a pointer. End of deployment; no messages. If I change the folder name to, say, BlueT, the exe will run; if I revert to Blue, it won't run. In the post above, I mention that deleting the Blue Music folder had no effect on whether the exe in Blue would run, it still wouldn't. But, then I did a through search for any remnants of Blue Music; shortcuts, start menu entries etc. Once all those had been removed, the exe in Blue now runs as expected. So this suggests a rule in Windows 7 about folder naming that is new.
BTW, these are applications I developed.
Bill

Ok, in case you post a different issue in the future, if you fill in the system specs in your profile then there's a button on every one of your posts people can click to get them(My System Specs in lower left corner.. see Quick Links for the link to the system specs fill in area) They don't have to search this thread that they won't know about.

On the naming thing it sounds really bizarre. Have you run any scans like MalwareBytes Anti-Malware? What did you use to implement your programs? Is it a scripting or straight compiled language or what?

It's difficult to tell for sure, but I guess that the space in blue music is causing problems and the program is trying to find files in the wrong place. Since you've made both programs, I guess the easiest thing is to do a stepthough with a debugging exe placed in blue and see where does it crashes.

You may start searching for occurrences in your code where it refers to file system paths, and make sure they're properly quoted. Generally, when you refer to a path, instead of putting something like c:\blue music\blablabla.dll you should instead use "c:\blue music\blablabla.dll", with the quotes INCLUDED in the variable passed to the API, to make sure Windows don't confuses paths with embedded spaces.

Yup. I think they changed it in Win98. I don't remember for sure. They allowed spaces in paths. It's the most common cause of error.

Although usually you get an error like "system cannot find C:\Program" because double quotes weren't wrapped around "C:\Program Files\whatever\whatever.exe"

If you are double clicking directly on the exe in Explorer and not a shortcut, that should not be the reason. It should still come up.