Isnt there a shell that takes backslashes?

There's the cmd.exe shell (but that shell is unusable for this exercise).
Also, the msys2 shell will accommodate backslashes in the path ... so long as they're escaped:

sisyphus@Owner-PC311012 MINGW64 ~
$ ls C:\\_32\\Python27\\doc
python274.chm

sisyphus@Owner-PC311012 MINGW64 ~
$ ls C:\\\_32\\\Python27\\\doc
python274.chm

sisyphus@Owner-PC311012 MINGW64 ~
$ ls C:\\\\_32\\\\Python27\\\\doc
python274.chm

sisyphus@Owner-PC311012 MINGW64 ~
$ ls C:\\_32\\\Python27\\\\doc
python274.chm
[download]

That could (potentially) be useful.

Cheers,
Rob