Special Folders
Encyclopedia
On Microsoft Windows
, a special folder is a folder which is presented to the user through an interface as an abstract concept, instead of an absolute folder path. This makes it possible for an application to ask the operating system where an appropriate location for certain kinds of files can be found, regardless of what version or language of operating system is being used.
Windows uses the concept of special folders to present the contents of the storage devices connected to the computer in a fairly consistent way that frees the user from having to deal with absolute file paths, which can (and often do) change between operating system versions, and even individual installations. The idea has evolved over time, with new special folders being added in every version of Windows since their introduction in Windows 95
.
Microsoft
's "Designed for Windows" logo requirements state that an application must make use of special folders locations to locate the appropriate folders in which documents and application settings should be stored.
A special folder can either be a reference to a physical file system directory, or a reference to a "virtual" folder. In the former case, they are analogous to environment variables — in fact, many of the environment variables that are set in a user's session are defined by where the special folders are set to point to.
Virtual folders, however, do not actually exist on the file system; they are instead presented through Windows Explorer
as a tree of folders that the user can navigate. This is known as the Shell namespace
. On Windows XP systems, the root of this namespace is the Desktop virtual folder, which contains the My Documents
, My Computer, My Network Places
(Network Neighborhood in Windows 95 and 98) and Recycle Bin
virtual folders. Some virtual folders (like Desktop) have an accompanying special folder that is a reference to a directory on the physical file system. Windows Explorer displays the combined contents of a virtual folder and its associated file system folder to the user. This can be seen in Figure 1, which shows the Folder view in Windows XP's Explorer; in the Desktop virtual folder, the four standard virtual folders can be seen, as well as an additional folder, "a folder on the desktop", which is a real folder located in the Desktop directory in the user's profile.
Some third-party programs add their own virtual folders to Windows Explorer.
. The OS version in which each special folder was introduced is given as well.
Notes:
Notes:
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, a special folder is a folder which is presented to the user through an interface as an abstract concept, instead of an absolute folder path. This makes it possible for an application to ask the operating system where an appropriate location for certain kinds of files can be found, regardless of what version or language of operating system is being used.
Overview
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. It was released on August 24, 1995 by Microsoft, and was a significant progression from the company's previous Windows products...
.
Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's "Designed for Windows" logo requirements state that an application must make use of special folders locations to locate the appropriate folders in which documents and application settings should be stored.
A special folder can either be a reference to a physical file system directory, or a reference to a "virtual" folder. In the former case, they are analogous to environment variables — in fact, many of the environment variables that are set in a user's session are defined by where the special folders are set to point to.
Virtual folders, however, do not actually exist on the file system; they are instead presented through Windows Explorer
Windows Explorer
This article is about the Windows file system browser. For the similarly named web browser, see Internet ExplorerWindows Explorer is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface...
as a tree of folders that the user can navigate. This is known as the Shell namespace
Windows Shell namespace
In Windows Shell programming, the Windows Shell namespace is an organized tree-structured hierarchical representation that Windows Explorer facilitates to graphically present file system contents and other objects to the end user...
. On Windows XP systems, the root of this namespace is the Desktop virtual folder, which contains the My Documents
My Documents
On Microsoft Windows computer operating systems , My Documents is the name of a special folder on the computer's hard drive that the system commonly uses to store a user's documents, music, pictures, downloads, and other files.- Overview :Microsoft first introduced the "My Documents" folder in...
, My Computer, My Network Places
My Network Places
In the Microsoft Windows operating systems, My Network Places is the network browser feature in Windows Explorer from Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, and Windows Me onwards...
(Network Neighborhood in Windows 95 and 98) and Recycle Bin
Recycle bin (computing)
In computing, the trash is temporary storage for files that have been deleted in a file manager by the user, but not yet permanently erased from the physical media...
virtual folders. Some virtual folders (like Desktop) have an accompanying special folder that is a reference to a directory on the physical file system. Windows Explorer displays the combined contents of a virtual folder and its associated file system folder to the user. This can be seen in Figure 1, which shows the Folder view in Windows XP's Explorer; in the Desktop virtual folder, the four standard virtual folders can be seen, as well as an additional folder, "a folder on the desktop", which is a real folder located in the Desktop directory in the user's profile.
Some third-party programs add their own virtual folders to Windows Explorer.
List of special folders
The following tables list most of the file system and virtual folders that are available as of Windows VistaWindows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
. The OS version in which each special folder was introduced is given as well.
File system directories
| Special folder | Represents | Default Location (in English. Non-English versions of Windows XP or earlier will use directory names appropriate to that language.) |
OS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Application Data | Per-user application-specific files | On Windows 2000 and Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\Application DataOn Windows Vista and later: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming |
98 |
| Cookies | Internet Explorer browser cookies | %USERPROFILE%\Cookies |
98 |
| Desktop Directory | Files stored on the user's desktop | %USERPROFILE%\Desktop |
95 |
| Favorites | User's Favorites | %USERPROFILE%\Favorites |
98 |
| Fonts | Container folder for installed fonts | %windir%\Fonts |
95 |
| History | User-specific browser history | %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\History |
98 |
| Internet Cache | User-specific Temporary Internet Files | %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files |
98 |
| Local Application Data | User-specific and computer-specific application settings | On Windows 2000 and Windows XP: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application DataOn Windows Vista and later: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local |
2000/ME |
| My Documents | User's documents | On Windows 2000 Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the... and Windows XP Windows XP Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base... : %USERPROFILE%\My DocumentsOn Windows Vista Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs... and later: %USERPROFILE%\DocumentsOn Windows 98 Windows 98 Windows 98 is a graphical operating system by Microsoft. It is the second major release in the Windows 9x line of operating systems. It was released to manufacturing on 15 May 1998 and to retail on 25 June 1998. Windows 98 is the successor to Windows 95. Like its predecessor, it is a hybrid... and Windows Me Windows Me Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me , is a graphical operating system released on September 14, 2000 by Microsoft, and was the last operating system released in the Windows 9x series. Support for Windows Me ended on July 11, 2006.... : C:\My Documents |
98 |
| My Music | User's music | On Windows XP Windows XP Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base... : %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My MusicOn Windows Vista Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs... and later: %USERPROFILE%\Music |
XP |
| My Pictures | User's pictures | On Windows XP Windows XP Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base... : %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My PicturesOn Windows Vista Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs... and later: %USERPROFILE%\Pictures |
XP |
| My Videos | User's video files | On Windows XP Windows XP Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base... : %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My VideosOn Windows Vista Windows Vista Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs... and later: %USERPROFILE%\Videos |
XP |
| Programs | User-specific "(All) Programs" groups and icons | %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs |
95 |
| Recent | User-specific "My Recent Documents" | %USERPROFILE%\Recent |
98 |
| Send To | User-specific "Send To" menu items | %USERPROFILE%\SendTo |
98 |
| Start Menu | User-specific "Start Menu" items | %USERPROFILE%\Start Menu |
98 |
| System | The Windows system directory | %windir%\system32 |
2000 |
| Saved Games | User's Saved Games | %USERPROFILE%\Saved games |
Vista |
| Templates | User-specific document templates | %USERPROFILE%\Templates |
98 |
Notes:
- The "Desktop" virtual folder is not the same thing as the "Desktop" special folder. The Desktop virtual folder is the root of the Windows Shell namespaceWindows Shell namespaceIn Windows Shell programming, the Windows Shell namespace is an organized tree-structured hierarchical representation that Windows Explorer facilitates to graphically present file system contents and other objects to the end user...
, which contains other virtual folders. - "Local Application Data" differs from "Application Data" in that files located in the "Local" variant are also intended to be specific to the machine it is on. This only has relevance if the user's profile is a Roaming Profile in a Windows Server domainWindows Server domainA Windows domain is a collection of security principals that share a central directory database. This central database contains the user accounts and security information for...
environment. - As with Desktop, the "My Documents" virtual folder differs from the "My Documents" special folder. If the virtual folder variant is asked for, it will appear in a file dialog as a sub-directory of the "Desktop" virtual folder, instead of the user's profile directory as it physically exists on the hard drive.
- If the "My Documents" folder is moved (e.g., to a network drive), attempting to access it via the shell variable will go to the original, default location.
Virtual folders
| Virtual Folder | Represents | OS |
|---|---|---|
| Recycle Bin | The aggregated contents of the Recycle Bin Recycle bin (computing) In computing, the trash is temporary storage for files that have been deleted in a file manager by the user, but not yet permanently erased from the physical media... on all drives for the current user |
98 |
| Control Panel | Icons for Control Panel (Windows) Control Panel (Windows) The Control Panel is a part of the Microsoft Windows graphical user interface which allows users to view and manipulate basic system settings and controls via applets, such as adding hardware, adding and removing software, controlling user accounts, and changing accessibility options... applets |
95 |
| Desktop | The Windows Desktop | 95 |
| Drives | My Computer; contains virtual folders representing everything on the local machine, as well as mapped network drives | 98 |
| Internet | Resources located on the Internet; WebDAV WebDAV Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning is a set of methods based on the Hypertext Transfer Protocol that facilitates collaboration between users in editing and managing documents and files stored on World Wide Web servers... connections, etc. |
95 |
| My Documents | Virtual folder of the user's My Documents My Documents On Microsoft Windows computer operating systems , My Documents is the name of a special folder on the computer's hard drive that the system commonly uses to store a user's documents, music, pictures, downloads, and other files.- Overview :Microsoft first introduced the "My Documents" folder in... folder; used as a child of the Desktop virtual folder |
98 |
| Network | Network Neighborhood (Windows 95 and 98) or My Network Places My Network Places In the Microsoft Windows operating systems, My Network Places is the network browser feature in Windows Explorer from Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows 2000, and Windows Me onwards... (Windows 2000 and later); contains virtual folders for representing all network resources |
98 |
| Search Results | Listing of the results of the last search of the computer (appears only after a search) | 2000 |
| Printers | Container folder for installed printers | 95 |
Notes:
- The "Desktop" virtual folder is not the same thing as the "Desktop" special folder. The Desktop virtual folder is the root of the Windows Shell namespaceWindows Shell namespaceIn Windows Shell programming, the Windows Shell namespace is an organized tree-structured hierarchical representation that Windows Explorer facilitates to graphically present file system contents and other objects to the end user...
, which contains other virtual folders. - As with Desktop, the "My Documents" virtual folder differs from the "My Documents" special folder. If the virtual folder variant is asked for, it will appear in a file dialog as a sub-directory of the "Desktop" virtual folder, instead of the user's profile directory as it logically exists on the hard drive.
See also
- Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
- Windows ExplorerWindows ExplorerThis article is about the Windows file system browser. For the similarly named web browser, see Internet ExplorerWindows Explorer is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface...
- Tweak UI
- Unix directory structureUnix directory structureIn Unix and Unix-like operating systems, the Unix directory structure is a convention for filesystem layout.Several attempts exist to standardize the Unix filesystem layout, such as the "Filesystem Hierarchy Standard," however, it is targeted primarily at Linux...
— similar standard for Unix - Filesystem Hierarchy StandardFilesystem Hierarchy StandardThe Filesystem Hierarchy Standard defines the main directories and their contents in Linux operating systems. For the most part, it is a formalization and extension of the traditional BSD filesystem hierarchy....
— similar standard for Linux
External links
- Shell Programmer's Guide - The Shell Namespace — MSDN documentation on Shell namespaces
- CSIDL Values — MSDN documentation containing a complete list of all available special folders and virtual folders
- Known Folders — MSDN documentation describing known folders on Vista (replaces CSIDL)
- KNOWNFOLDERID Values — MSDN documentation containing a complete list of all known folders (on Vista, replaces CSIDL)
- Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP — TweakUI is available for download on this page
- Environment.SpecialFolder Enumeration — MSDN documentation on accessing special folder values in the .NET Framework.NET FrameworkThe .NET Framework is a software framework that runs primarily on Microsoft Windows. It includes a large library and supports several programming languages which allows language interoperability...
- Utility that shows the path of all special folders