How do I check if a given string is a legal/valid file name under Windows?

Question

I want to include a batch file rename functionality in my application. A user can type a destination filename pattern and (after replacing some wildcards in the pattern) I n

Answer 1

Microsoft Windows: Windows kernel forbids the use of characters in range 1-31 (i.e., 0x01-0x1F) and characters " * : < > ? \ |. Although NTFS allows each path component (directory or filename) to be 255 characters long and paths up to about 32767 characters long, the Windows kernel only supports paths up to 259 characters long. Additionally, Windows forbids the use of the MS-DOS device names AUX, CLOCK$, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, CON, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, LPT9, NUL and PRN, as well as these names with any extension (for example, AUX.txt), except when using Long UNC paths (ex. \.\C:\nul.txt or \?\D:\aux\con). (In fact, CLOCK$ may be used if an extension is provided.) These restrictions only apply to Windows - Linux, for example, allows use of " * : < > ? \ | even in NTFS.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename