Unable to paste in conhost.exe hidden system file

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Thy Grand Voidinesss
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:01 pm

Unable to paste in conhost.exe hidden system file

Post by Thy Grand Voidinesss »

There is this extremely hidden file located at

C:\Windows\System32\conhost.exe

This file is invisible in both free file manager FreeCommander [https://freecommander.com/en/downloads/] as well as in Window Explorer [even when hidden files are set to be shown]. This Matrix-like file can be accessed with a help of faree 7-zip [https://www.7-zip.org/download.html], which also does not sees it but do opens that path when it is pasted in to its Address Bar, reveling an apparently compressed content that EXE holds

But to run this file, aside from methods like evoking any kind of version of cmd.exe, a user has to past in the path leading to it into the Address Bar of Window Explorer



And now to the point: when conhost.exe in Everything is right clicked be me and then I pick the Copy entry from shell menu, all seems to be hunky-dunky. But when I try to paste it to some other location from the clipboard, I get a pop-up error saying "Could not find this item"

So which is it: is Everything able to truly see this conhost.exe file - or is it not?

(I reckon that this is not a real bug - and the culprit is the operating system - but nevertheless this curious question of mine stands)



I am using Everything version 1.5.0.1315a (x64)1.4.1.1015 (x64) & version 1.4.1.1015 (x64) on Windows 10 Enterprise 20H2 19042.746 x64
Last edited by Thy Grand Voidinesss on Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:20 pm, edited 3 times in total.
horst.epp
Posts: 1344
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 3:24 pm

Re: Unable to copy conhost.exe hidden system file

Post by horst.epp »

Sorry but thats wrong.
The file conhost.exe is not special in any way and its definitely not hidden.
Its found by Everything and you can select Copy from its context menu.
Then in any other tool like Free Commander you can use Paste context menu and get the file copied.
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______________________________________________________
Windows 11 Home x64 Version 21H2 (OS Build 22000.832)
Everything 1.5.0.1315a (x64)
TC 10.50 x64 / x86
Free Commander XE 2022 x64 build 873
Thy Grand Voidinesss
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:01 pm

Re: Unable to copy conhost.exe hidden system file

Post by Thy Grand Voidinesss »

horst.epp wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 1:46 pm [...]
in any other tool like Free Commander you can use Paste context menu and get the file copied
[...]
Well I have just put to the test this claim

And it seems that after all I can paste it in- but only in Windows Explorer, thus sill not in FreeCommander [version 861 32-bit public] as it still produces that "Could not find this item" error

So it seems that this a bug in FreeCommander. [And in the future I should also check Windows Explorer behavior instead of relaying only on FreeCommander, which long time has replaced for me Windows Explorer. Sorry for a false alarm]
Last edited by Thy Grand Voidinesss on Mon Aug 29, 2022 1:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
NotNull
Posts: 5260
Joined: Wed May 24, 2017 9:22 pm

Re: Unable to paste in conhost.exe hidden system file

Post by NotNull »

The free (public) version of FreeCommander is 32-bit.

conhost.exe (console host; responsible for in-/output of console applications like CMD and PowerShell) is only available as 64-bit on a 64-bit OS.

C:\Windows\System32\ for 32-bit applications maps to C:\Windows\SysWOW64 and there is no conhost.exe in that folder. Hence the error message.
Thy Grand Voidinesss
Posts: 606
Joined: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:01 pm

Re: Unable to paste in conhost.exe hidden system file

Post by Thy Grand Voidinesss »

NotNull wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:28 pm [...]
conhost.exe
[...]
is only available as 64-bit on a 64-bit OS.
[...]
And there is the answer

Thank you for clearing of that issue
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