Wildcard Usage in Device Control

Wildcards are used correctly in the following examples:
Table 1. Correct Usage of Wildcards

Example

Matched Data

?:\Password.exe

The "Password.exe" file located directly under any drive

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\*.exe

Any file in C:\Program Files that has a file extension

C:\Program Files\*.*

Any file in C:\Program Files that has a file extension

C:\Program Files\a?c.exe

Any .exe file in C:\Program Files that has 3 characters starting with the letter "a" and ending with the letter "c"

C:\*

Any file located directly under the C:\ drive, with or without file extensions

Wildcards are used incorrectly in the following examples:
Table 2. Incorrect Usage of Wildcards

Example

Reason

??:\Buffalo\Password.exe

?? represents two characters and drive letters only have a single alphabetic character.

*:\Buffalo\Password.exe

* represents multi-character data and drive letters only have a single alphabetic character.

C:\*\Password.exe

Wildcards cannot be used to represent folder names. The exact name of a folder must be specified.

C:\?\Password.exe