SHGetSpecialFolderPath Function

Declare Function SHGetSpecialFolderPath Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "SHGetSpecialFolderPathA" (ByVal hwndOwner As Long, ByVal lpszPath As String, ByVal nFolder As Long, ByVal fCreate As Long) As Long

Platforms

Windows 95: Requires Internet Explorer 4.0 or later.
Windows 98: Supported.
Windows NT: Requires Windows NT 4.0 or later with Internet Explorer 4.0 or later.
Windows 2000: Supported but Obsolete; use SHGetFolderPath instead.
Windows CE: Not Supported.

Description & Usage

SHGetSpecialFolderPath retrieves the name of the path of a special folder on the system. This function only works with special folders which are physical directories on a disk. The function will fail if the special folder is a virtual folder.

Return Value

If an error occured, the function returns 0. If successful, the function returns a non-zero value.

Visual Basic-Specific Issues

None.

Parameters

hwndOwner: A handle to the window calling the function, which will own any dialog boxes the function may create.
lpszPath: Receives a null-terminated string holding the path name of the special folder. A string at least 260 characters long must be passed as this parameter to receive the result.
nIndex: The CSIDL of the special folder to get the path of.
fCreate: If 0, do not create the special folder if it does not yet exist. If a non-zero value, create the special folder if it does not yet exist.

Example

' Display the path of the directory used as the My Documents
' special folder.  This might not be "C:\My Documents" if the user renamed it!
Dim pathname As String  ' receives the path of My Documents
Dim retval As Long  ' return value

' Make enough room in the buffer to receive the string.
pathname = Space(260)
' Get the path name of the My Documents special folder
retval = SHGetSpecialFolderPath(Form1.hWnd, pathname, CSIDL_PERSONAL, 0)
' Remove the empty space from the string.
pathname = Left(pathname, InStr(pathname, vbNullChar) - 1)
' Display the result.
Debug.Print "The My Documents special folder is: "; pathname

Related Functions

SHGetFolderPath, SHGetSpecialFolderLocation