Microsoft KB Archive/243777

= Nothing Happens or Contents of "Look in" Box Change When You Click Save =

Article ID: 243777

Article Last Modified on 1/25/2007

-

APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 * Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Windows 98 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition
 * Microsoft Windows 95

-



This article was previously published under Q243777



SYMPTOMS
When you click Save in the Save File As common dialog box, nothing may happen, or the contents of the Look In box may change.



CAUSE
This behavior can occur if the the File Name box contains an asterisk (*) or question mark (?). These characters are reserved for use as wildcards and cannot be used in a file name.



RESOLUTION
Specify a file name that does not contain an asterisk or question mark.



STATUS
This behavior is by design and is shared by all Windows-based programs that use the common Save File As dialog box.



MORE INFORMATION
You can use wildcards to reference more than one file name by using special characters. A wildcard is a character (either an asterisk or a question mark) that is used to express that any combination of characters is allowed in a certain section of a string. For example, if you want to list all files that begin with the string "user" but can contain any other characters and any extension, use the following wildcard:

user*.*

If you want to list all files that start with any character, then contain the string "user" and have any extension, use the following wildcard:

?user*.*

File names that contain other illegal characters, such as a colon, generate the following error message:

This filename is not valid.

The characters that are valid for a file or folder name include any combination of letters (A-Z) and/or numbers (0-9), plus the following special characters:   $   Dollar sign %  Percent '  Apostrophe `  Opening single quotation mark -  Hyphen @  At sign {  Left brace }  Right brace ~  Tilde !  Exclamation point #  Number sign (  Opening parenthesis   )   Closing parenthesis &  Ampersand _  Underscore ^  Caret space +  Plus sign ,  Comma .  Period =  Equal sign [  Opening bracket ]  Closing bracket

Keywords: kbprb KB243777

-

[mailto:TECHNET@MICROSOFT.COM Send feedback to Microsoft]

© Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.