Lost use of forward slash in windows command prompt

Question

I can no longer use / at the windows xp command prompt, and it seems to have started after a botched cygwin installation, e.g. cd /windows won't work, but used to.

Can anyone think of how this might have happened?

OOPS! It doesn't normally work in XP, though I had read that it does in Vista. I simplified my problem and it was wrong. The real problem is:

I was using the cwrsync binaries (meant for cygwin use) that can be used at the command prompt in a way such as:

ssh -i /keydir/keyfile user@server

but after doing something (seems like it was installing cygwin), and even after reinstalling the cwrsync files, I can now only do:

ssh -i \keydir\keyfile user@server, i.e. I have to use the windows convention when referring to local files.

I posted this on the cwrsync forum, but it's not very active, so I was hoping someone might recognize what's going on here, I should maybe try the cygwin forum too.

Solution

You imagined it - it never worked.

If you happen to be in C:\ and type

C:\>cd /windows

it will take you to C:\WINDOWS\ but that's only because /windows is not a valid option to cd, so it tries ignoring the /.

Forward slash is a path separator in UNIX and cygwin, but Windows uses it for commandline options, eg. dir /w.

Comments

[user541686]

I haven't tested this on XP, but Windows 7 definitely allows things like cd C:/Windows/System32.

[Peter - Reinstate Monica]

@Mehrdad But you notice the difference -- C:/ does not begin with a slash which is the reason it's not mistaken for a command line option, as opposed to the OP's path.

[user541686]

@PeterA.Schneider: Try C: && cd /Windows. (Also, I just tested it on XP, and it doesn't work there. So I guess it's a newer feature.)