vim write to nul device without bugging

	<therube_agone>	hi. i'm on windows. i'm try to write to the "device", nul.
	<therube_agone>	i do something like; 'a,w nul
	<therube_agone>	i use that a lot to get a count of lines between "marks" ('a,.)
	<therube_agone>	i /used/ to be able to do that without issue, but that changed in later versions of Vim
	<therube_agone>	with (i think with) v8.1, i had to; set opendevice & then still had to force the write; 'a,w! nul
	<therube_agone>	with 8.2, i'm getting E768: Swap file exits: C:\Local\Vim_BAK\nul.swp (:silent! overrides)
	<therube_agone>	i'm not looking to overwrite nul.swp (which does not even exist), i just trying to write to the nul device, nul
	<therube_agone>	there is a currently.opened.filename.txt.swp in the Vim_BAK directory
	<therube_agone>	pointers ?
	<therube_agone>	i have also set backupdir, directory, & undodir to that same Vim_BAK