follow-up on illegal file names

[Mark I Halpern <Mark_Halpern -at- SMTPGATE -dot- TESSERACT -dot- COM>]

      Colleagues,

         First, my thanks to all of you who sent me suggestions as to how to
      get rid of the illegally-named files in my Windows system.  I had
      hoped to thank each of you individually, but there were so many who
      responded that it would take me a full day to write a note to each, so
      please accept this expression of my gratitude to those who took time
      out from their own busy days to try to help.

         Second, I must sadly record that none of the suggestions seems to
      work.  Almost everyone advised me to drop into DOS, and use various
      tricks involving wildcard characters.  I haven't tried every variation
      suggested on this theme, and I might yet strike paydirt with one of
      them, but I don't expect to.  After all, Windows *is* DOS; DOS with a
      (more) human (inter)face, but still DOS.  If DOS can't recognize the
      filenames when used through Windows, why should it do so when used
      directly?  I know there are some things you can do in DOS that you
      can't in Windows, but getting tricky with file names doesn't seem to
      be one of them.

         As I said to one of my benefactors, I think many of us sometimes
      think of DOS as being to Windows what assembly language is to a Higher
      Level Language like Pascal, and expect to be able to do all sorts of
      things with it that you can't do with a HLL -- but that's a false
      analogy.  Using DOS to control your system is more like trying to
      control your car's engine from under the hood instead of from the
      driver's seat -- you don't get more functionality, you just get dirty.

         I have noticed one more thing that might be a clue for someone
      who's really deep into DOS's file structure and naming convention;
      when I bring the illegal, blank-containing file name into a dialogue
      box -- the Rename box, for example -- the whole name is enclosed in
      quote marks.  Does this cause a light bulb to go on for anyone?

         Thanks again to all who tried to help...

                                                          Mark