Difference between revisions of "Special folders"

Latest revision as of 17:54, 30 October 2008

There are numerous ways to get "special" paths in windows. You can read them directly from the registry, but this is not recommended. You can also get a few select ones by reading the environment variables, but again, these are not guaranteed. The proper way is to use the SHGetSpecialFolderLocation() function.

Private Declare Function SHGetSpecialFolderLocation Lib "shell32" _
 (ByVal hwndOwner As Long, ByVal nFolder As Long, pidl As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function SHGetPathFromIDList Lib "shell32" Alias "SHGetPathFromIDListA" _
 (ByVal pidl As Long, ByVal pszPath As String) As Long
Private Declare Sub CoTaskMemFree Lib "ole32.dll" (ByVal pv As Long)

Private Const ERROR_SUCCESS = 0
Private Const MAX_LENGTH = 260

Public Function GetSpecialFolder(ByVal CSIDL As Long) As String
Dim sPath As String
Dim pidl As Long

  'Get the ID list from the Path ID
  If SHGetSpecialFolderLocation(0, CSIDL, pidl) = ERROR_SUCCESS Then
    
    'Allocate the space for the path
    sPath = Space$(MAX_LENGTH)
    'Get the real path from the ID list
    If SHGetPathFromIDList(ByVal pidl, ByVal sPath) Then
      
      'Strip off the trailing null characters
      GetSpecialFolder = Left$(sPath, InStr(sPath, Chr$(0)) - 1)
      'And add a trailing \
      If Right(GetSpecialFolder, 1) <> "\" Then GetSpecialFolder = GetSpecialFolder & "\"
    End If
    
    'Release the ID list memory
    CoTaskMemFree pidl
  End If
End Function

The only exception to this rule is the temporary folder. For this, you need to make use of the GetTempPath() function.

Private Declare Function GetTempPath Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetTempPathA" _
 (ByVal nBufferLength As Long, ByVal lpBuffer As String) As Long

Public Function TemporaryPath() As String
Dim Data As String
Dim Size As Long

  'Get the size needed to store the path
  Size = GetTempPath(0, "")
  'Create a string long enough
  Data = String(Size, vbNullChar)
  'Get the Temporary path itself
  GetTempPath Len(Data), Data
  'And remove the trailing Null character
  TemporaryPath = Left(Data, Len(Data) - 1)
End Function

CSIDL folder values

The values for various folders are as follows:

See also

• HashVB API page
• MSDN page
• CSIDL list on MSDN
• IceTips special folders to list all CSIDL folders on your computer