WSL limitations
Every OS has limitations in the characters that can be used in a file name that are enforced by the OS itself, or by the filesystem.
- Unix/Linux will accept everything but
/ - Windows forbids a lot more characters:
<>:"/\|?*(plus some filenames likeAUX, etc)
So what happens when Windows Explorer browses a directory with file names containing valid Linux characters that are forbidden on Windows?
Well, Windows simply shows some broken character (note that the same happens when browsing a WSL folder from the terminal):
Also, this is what happens when attempting to use a Linux-valid character when renaming a folder in WSL from Windows Explorer:
Unlike Windows Explorer, React-Explorer will correctly display Linux files containing characters forbidden on Windows:
Unfortunately, there's no easy way to fix accessing files containing a character forbidden on Windows.
But when attempting to do so, React-Explorer will at least warn the user about it:
List of actions that will show such a warning:
- renaming a Linux file/folder with a bad character
- deleting a Linux file/folder with a bad character
Copying files containing bad characters from WSL to Windows will produce an error. Unfortunately, there is no way to properly fix it without running some Linux command which would replace bad characters on the fly. And we don't want to go that road.