Location of all users in vista

You might have noticed when clicking on a folder in Windows Explorer, with a shortcut icon on it a Junction Point , you get an Access Denied message from Vista. This is to be expected.

You are not supposed to access these folders, and there really is no reason to access these folders. Again, these Junction Points are just pointers to the new folder structure used in Vista. So how do you know what this new folder structure is? Where are those Junction Points pointing to? You can use lowercase letters too This will display all the junction points and the location that the Junction Point refers too.

You can also run the following command from a command prompt to save a list of all the Junction Points on your C: drive:. Folders to take note of here are the folders in the All Users path. There are also differences in environment variables between Windows Vista and the older versions of Windows. For the average user, Junction Points will be mostly invisible, so to speak. For application developers, understanding Junction Points and how their pre-Vista apps might behave in Windows Vista is very important.

For IT admins and support people who must know the intimacies of the file system and where files are, Junction Points will probably be a pain in the neck. For example, where do you now put an application that you would have put in the startup folder for the All Users profile?

What was fairly simple in XP, is now somewhat of a treasure hunt in Vista. Microsoft, back oh so many years ago, decided to personalize Windows with My this and My that. It was a little cutesy, and unnecessary. Someone in Redmond must have said get rid of the My crap and go back to normal folder names. So now we are rid of cutsey, but have a maze of pointers, Junctions Points, soft links, hard links and so on to deal with.

List of Junction Points in Windows Vista. If you hard code the value, your code will break in the future.

The reason I care for is because the application would be running in a sandbox environment, and won't have access to system registry or the system environment variables. I'd use the KnownFolderId suggestion inside your sandbox. I gather this can be changed simply by changing the registry and moving the current directory.

Thanks for the link. I am doing some research and need information on how Windows decides the location of the folder upon installation. Registry is written only after Windows Vista has taken a decision. If it's not documented, then you can't rely on it.

One of the major reasons software companies keep a lot of this stuff undocumented is because once it's published, you can't change it without annoying a LOT of people. You need to ask MS - maybe Raymond Chen could help, but I suspect he'd give you the same advice - you may well find out, but it will not be reliable :- — paxdiablo. I had already put forward the question through MSDN and am still awaiting reply : — sangupta.

Hemant Hemant Thanks for the sheet. But, I am looking for documentation as to how Windows decide where to map these folders to, upon installation. The entries you have made are already as in the registry settings see previous answer. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Email Required, but never shown. The Overflow Blog. Stack Gives Back Safety in numbers: crowdsourcing data on nefarious IP addresses.

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