PRB: Invalid Name for New Project Error When Using AppWizard

The information in this article applies to:

   The AppWizard, included with:
     - Microsoft Visual C++ for Windows, versions 1.0, 1.5, 1.51

SYMPTOMS

AppWizard will not allow certain names to be used for projects if those names conflict with system modules or services that may be loaded. The following error message will be seen when attempting to use one of these names:

   Invalid name for new project

STATUS

This behavior is by design.

MORE INFORMATION

If these names were allowed, and an executable with one of these names was created, a user may not be able to run the application because Windows would think the module was already loaded.

For example, if the project is named "user" and the resulting executable is called USER.EXE, when someone tries to run the application, Windows will not load it. Windows thinks USER.EXE is already running, and in fact, it is. This behavior is only apparent in the 16-bit versions of Visual C++ because the 32-bit versions of Windows don't have this same limitation.

The following is a complete list of the names that AppWizard will currently disallow:

con ole2 compobj mfcoleui ole2conv ole2disp ole2nls ole2prox storage typelib odbc comm lpt1 lpt2 lpt3 lpt4 com1 com2 com3 com4 nul gdi krnl386 user win386