All file systems supported by Windows use the concept of files and directories to access data stored on a disk or device. Windows developers working with the Windows APIs for file and device I/O should understand the various rules, conventions, and limitations of names for files and directories.
Data can be accessed from disks, devices, and network shares using file I/O APIs. Files and directories, along with namespaces, are part of the concept of a path, which is a string representation of where to get the data regardless if it's from a disk or a device or a network connection for a specific operation.
Some file systems, such as NTFS, support linked files and directories, which also follow file naming conventions and rules just as a regular file or directory would. For additional information, see Hard Links and Junctions and Reparse Points and File Operations.