How to get location of Desktop folder on Win32

[Anonymous Monk]

Hi, How can a script get locations of various special folders like Desktop, Start Menu, Application data directory, etc on Win32? Thanks in advance for the answer!

[EdwardG]

Quick answer:

use Win32 qw(CSIDL_APPDATA);
print Win32::GetFolderPath(CSIDL_APPDATA);

This is a question the most Win32 programmers ask at some point, so it is worth posting some comprehensive info from MSDN

Whenever you access any of the special folders in the following list, your application should use the Win32 APIs to dynamically obtain the proper language-specific folder names. The preferred way to do this is using the SHGetFolderPath API with the appropriate CSIDL constant. This function behaves consistently across Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, and Windows 2000.

This API is redistributable via the SHFOLDER.DLL. SHFOLDER.DLL is installed by the Windows Installer redistributable. Software vendors are encouraged to redistribute this component as much as possible to enable this support on Windows operating systems prior to Windows 2000. Windows 2000 includes this DLL as a protected system file and, as such, this DLL cannot be replaced on Windows 2000 or greater.

To help ensure your application can run on Windows 9x, Windows NT 4 as well as Windows 2000, always link to the SHGetFolderPath implementation in SHFOLDER.DLL. Windows 2000 natively implements SHGetFolderPath in SHELL32.DLL, but other versions of Windows do not include SHGetFolderPath in SHELL32.DLL.

Standard Folder	CSIDL Constant Name
Alternate Startup ([user], DBCS)	CSIDL_ALTSTARTUP
Alternate Startup folder (All Users profile, DBCS)	CSIDL_COMMON_ALTSTARTUP
Application Data ([user] profile)	CSIDL_APPDATA
Application Data (All Users Profile)	CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA
Control Panel virtual folder	CSIDL_CONTROLS
Cookies folder	CSIDL_COOKIES
Desktop (namespace root)	CSIDL_DESKTOP
Desktop folder ([user] profile)	CSIDL_DESKTOPDIRECTORY
Desktop folder (All Users profile)	CSIDL_COMMON_DESKTOPDIRECTORY
Favorites folder ([user] profile)	CSIDL_FAVORITES
Favorites folder (All Users profile)	CSIDL_COMMON_FAVORITES
Fonts virtual folder	CSIDL_FONTS
History folder	CSIDL_HISTORY
Internet Cache folder	CSIDL_INTERNET_CACHE
Internet virtual folder	CSIDL_INTERNET
Local (non-roaming) data repository for apps	CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA
My Computer virtual folder	CSIDL_DRIVES
My Pictures folder	CSIDL_MYPICTURES
Network Neighborhood directory	CSIDL_NETHOOD
Network Neighborhood root	CSIDL_NETWORK
Personal folder ([user] profile)	CSIDL_PERSONAL
Printers virtual folder	CSIDL_PRINTERS
PrintHood folder ([user] profile)	CSIDL_PRINTHOOD
Program Files folder	CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES
Program Files folder for x86 apps on Alpha systems	CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILESX86
Programs folder (under Start menu in [user] profile)	CSIDL_PROGRAMS
Programs folder (under Start menu in All Users profile)	CSIDL_COMMON_PROGRAMS
Recent folder ([user] profile)	CSIDL_RECENT
Recycle Bin folder	CSIDL_BITBUCKET
SendTo folder ([user] profile)	CSIDL_SENDTO
Start menu ([user] profile)	CSIDL_STARTMENU
Start menu (All Users profile)	CSIDL_COMMON_STARTMENU
Startup folder ([user] profile)	CSIDL_STARTUP
Startup folder (All Users profile)	CSIDL_COMMON_STARTUP
System folder	CSIDL_SYSTEM
System folder for x86 applications on Alpha systems	CSIDL_SYSTEMx86
Templates folder ([user] profile)	CSIDL_TEMPLATES
User’s profile folder	CSIDL_PROFILE
Windows directory or SYSROOT	CSIDL_WINDOWS

[eserte]

Thanks for pointing out the existance of GetFolderPath. But note that this function is only available since perl 5.8.1, so for a compatible solution one has to use Win32::API or Win32::Registry.

[eserte]

Use the API function SHGetSpecialFolderLocation. For an example usage, take a look at the get_special_folder function in Win32Util.

[jdporter]

It's incredibly easy using Win32::OLE. You can use the application object named WScript.Shell.

  use Win32::OLE;

  my $wsh = new Win32::OLE 'WScript.Shell';

  my $desktop_path = $wsh->SpecialFolders('Desktop');

You can inquire about lots of other special folders using this interface:
• Favorites
• Fonts
• MyDocuments
• NetHood
• PrintHood
• Programs
• Recent
• SendTo
• StartMenu
• Startup
• Templates
I don't know what versions of Windows have the WScript.Shell interface. The only Perl dependency is the Win32::OLE module.

[AcidHawk]

That kinda depends on what you are looking for...

If you are looking for directories to Desktop/Start Menu/Application Data, for the current user you could always look for the USERPROFILE environment setting with $ENV{'USERPROFILE'} then those 'special' directories are all under there.

You can then just add for example \\Desktop to that envirenment variable.

Below is a simple untested example:

my $path = $ENV{'USERPROFILE'};
$path =~s/\\/\//g;

my $desktop_path = "$path/Desktop";

-----
Of all the things I've lost in my life, its my mind I miss the most.

[eserte]

This is not a good solution. In non-english localizations the directory names are different (e.g. "My Documents" is "Meine Dokumente" in the German Windows version). Using an API function is the better solution.