OFF2000: Macro to Get Windows and Windows System Folders

ID: Q200123

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Access 2000
Microsoft Excel 2000
Microsoft PowerPoint 2000 For Windows
Microsoft Word 2000

SUMMARY

The Microsoft Windows operating system provides two routines that can be called by Microsoft Office 2000 programs to get the \Windows and the \Windows\System folders.

MORE INFORMATION

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When Windows starts, it sets a special environment variable called WINDIR with the path from which Windows was started. You can use the following macro instruction to post the Windows folder to a message box.


MsgBox Environ$("WINDIR")

However, there is no argument to return the \System folder when using this method. The following examples use Windows API calls to return both the \Windows and \Windows\System folders.

The following macro example retrieves the \Windows and \Windows\System folders and prints them to the Debug (Immediate) window in the Visual Basic for Applications Editor.


' Place these declarations in the General Declarations procedure of a
' Visual Basic for Applications module.

   Declare Function GetWindowsDirectoryA Lib "Kernel32" _
   (ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByVal nSize As Long) As Long
   Declare Function GetSystemDirectoryA Lib "Kernel32" _
   (ByVal lpBuffer As String, ByVal nSize As Long) As Long

Create a macro and place the following code into the routine.


   Sub GetOSDirs()
      Dim sBuf As String
      Dim cSize As Long
      Dim retval As Long
      sBuf = String(255, 0)
      cSize = 255
      ' Get Windows Directory.
      retval = GetWindowsDirectoryA(sBuf, cSize)
      sBuf = Left(sBuf, retval)
      Debug.Print sBuf
      ' Get System Directory.
      sBuf = String(255, 0)
      cSize = 255
      retval = GetSystemDirectoryA(sBuf, cSize)
      sBuf = Left(sBuf, retval)
      Debug.Print sBuf
   End Sub

If the Debug window is not visible, then while in the Visual Basic for Applications Editor, on the View menu, click Immediate Window (or Debug Window).

Additional query words: OFF2000 off2k vb vba vbe

Keywords : kbdta EPUCon
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto