I discovered that
cmd.exe lets you
enter a nonexistent directory,
as long as you leave it before anybody notices.
rem acts like cd C:\Windows cd C:\doesnt-exist\..\Windows rem acts like cd C:\Windows cd C:\really\doesnt-exist\..\..\Windows rem acts like type C:\Windows\win.ini type C:\doesnt-exist\..\Windows\win.ini
This is handy if you have a full path to a file on the clipboard
and you want to access the parent directory.
For example, to chdir into the parent directory,
you can
type cd, a space, and then paste the full path,
and then append \.. and hit Enter.
rem suppose clipboard contains C:\directory\with\file.txt rem The next line acts like cd C:\directory\with cd C:\directory\with\file.txt\..
This trick works because cmd.exe does some
path simplification before calling into the file system.
It sees the .. and says,
"Oh, I can do that myself!"
and uses it to counteract the previous directory.
The previous directory is never accessed,
so the command processor doesn't notice that it never existed.