What is the DosDevice?

Question

What is the definition of DosDevice?

Is a C: DosDevice?
And are COM1 and CON DosDevice either?

Answer 1

A DosDevice is virtual name that maps to a place in the NT/Windows Object Manager's namespace that provide compatability with old style dos names for devices such as C: COM1: etc. The object manager's namespace allows unique entries for all the things that the windows OS manages.

There are parts of the Object Managers namespaces are are virtualised for each login session. DosDevices are part of this and exist in the virtual namespace \DosDevices.

So C: (COM1: etc) will actually be either the one that is local to your login, or more like the one in the primary session. If you use a terminal session then this is where C: is likely to be else where.