Kyle Jones <kyle_jones(a)wonderworks.com&gt; writes: I'm not convinced that it is EFS-specific. Aren't there other things done to a file name that might need quoting, like the tilde and dollar-sign substitution? FSFmacs's NEWS entry for that change went like this: ** You can "quote" a file name to inhibit special significance of special syntax, by adding `/:' to the beginning. Thus, if you have a directory named `/foo:', you can prevent it from being treated as a reference to a remote host named `foo' by writing it as `/:/foo:'. Emacs uses this new construct automatically when necessary, such as when you start it with a working directory whose name might otherwise be taken to be magic. If EFS simply installs it as a handler, then the second paragraph won't stand true. I don't see why you would want to turn it off. The only imaginable reason would be having a `/:' directory which you frequently use.