Cardboard Iguana Security

Unquoted path handling in Windows

When Windows encounters an unquoted path it tries all possible paths, from shortest to longest. Thus C:\Program Files\Application Path\App.exe will cause Windows to look for the following executables, in order:

  • C:\Program.exe
  • C:\Program Files\Application.exe
  • C:\Program Files\Application Path\App.exe

If an executable is found on a shorter path, then the remainder of the (unquoted) path is treated as command line parameters.

Unquoted path handling in Windows
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Unquoted path handling in Windows