directory: Find special folder locations Usage: directory [-ah!-] [allusers] foldernames ... directory returns the actual paths to the specified special folders, one per line. If no foldernames are specified, directory lists the symbolic names and locations of all of them. There are four types of these folders: 1. System folders, e.g., the windows directory containing the operating system files. 2. Folders for individual users. For example, each user has his own My Music folder. 3. Folders shared by all users, e.g., the directory of desktop items shared by all users. 4. Virtual folders that don't actually exist as actual directories. For example, the desktop each user sees is a virtual folder merging two physical folders, the individual user's desktop folder plus the desktop folder shared by all users. directory can only return the path to a folder that actually exists as a physical directory. It cannot return a path to a virtual folder because virtual folders don't really exist as physical directories. These are the folders for which directory can tell you the location: System folders: system The Windows system folder. windows The Windows directory. Folders for individual users: cdburning The staging area for files waiting to be written to CD. cookies Repository for Internet cookies. history Common repository for Internet history items. internetcache Repository for temporary Internet files. localappdata Data repository for applications on this machine. nethood Any link objects that may exist in the user's My Network Places virtual folder. printhood Any link objects that may exist in the user's Printers virtual folder. profile The user's profile folder. recent Shortcuts to the user's most recently used documents. sendto The directory containing any Send To menu items. Folders that exist both per-user and for all users: admintools Administrative tools. The Microsoft Management Console will save customized consoles to this directory. altstartup The startup program group. appdata Repository for application-specific data. desktop Directory for storing items on the desktop. favorites Repository for favorite items. mydocuments Repository for documents. mymusic Repository for music files. mypictures Repository for image files. myvideo Repository for video files. programs The All Programs group in the Start menu. startmenu Directory containing the Start menu items. startup Directory containing the Startup program group. The system starts these programs when the user logs on. templates Directory containing templates. If there are both per-user and all users versions of a folder, directory returns the path to the current user's folder by default. Prefacing the folder's name by "allusers" (as a separate word) or using the -a option causes directory to return the path to the shared folder used by all users. To get the per-user version of a special folder for a user other than one current user, run directory using the su command. (See "su -h" for more information.) Options: -a Allusers version of the folder. -h Help. (This screen.) -- End of options. |