specifying a path in Windows vs Linux

I am trying to write out some data to Amazon's S3 database. As part of this I needed to create a file with my amazon credentials called credentials and place it in a file called "$Homedirectory/aws/.credentials". First, I don't think you can create a file in windows that start with a "." and second, when I try running I get an error Cannot read credentials from 

C:\Users\richb201/.aws/credentials

C:\Users\richb201 is my correct home directory.  But /.aws/credentials was added by the Amazon PHP sdk (I can see that in my debugger). I always thought that in Windows (like in DOS)  the . is the parent directory. Is this path not working because this sdk thinks I am running in Linux? Why are the adding forward slashes? Should I be adding a Linux dual boot to my Windows PC?

proof that an old dog can learn new tricks