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SHSetFolderPathW function (shlobj_core.h)

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Deprecated. Assigns a new path to a system folder identified by its CSIDL.

Syntax

HRESULT SHSetFolderPathW(
  [in] int     csidl,
  [in] HANDLE  hToken,
  [in] DWORD   dwFlags,
  [in] LPCWSTR pszPath
);

Parameters

[in] csidl

Type: int

A CSIDL value that identifies the folder whose path is to be set. Only physical folders are valid. If a virtual folder is specified, this function fails.

Add the CSIDL_FLAG_DONT_UNEXPAND value to the CSIDL to ensure that the string is written to the registry exactly as provided. If the CSIDL_FLAG_DONT_UNEXPAND flag is not included, portions of the path may be replaced by environment strings, such as %USERPROFILE%.

[in] hToken

Type: HANDLE

An access token that can be used to represent a particular user. This parameter is usually set to NULL, in which case the function tries to access the current user's instance of the folder. However, you may need to assign a value to hToken for those folders that can have multiple users but are treated as belonging to a single user. The most commonly used folder of this type is Documents.

The calling application is responsible for correct impersonation when hToken is non-null. It must have appropriate security privileges for the particular user, including TOKEN_QUERY and TOKEN_IMPERSONATE, and the user's registry hive must be currently mounted. See Access Control for further discussion of access control issues.

[in] dwFlags

Type: DWORD

Reserved. Must be set to 0.

[in] pszPath

Type: LPCTSTR

A pointer to a null-terminated string of length MAX_PATH that contains the folder's new path. This value cannot be NULL, and the string cannot be of zero length.

Return value

Type: HRESULT

Returns standard HRESULT codes, including the following:

Return code Description
S_OK
 The folder's path was successfully updated.
E_INVALIDARG
 Several error conditions cause the return of this value, including the following:
  • The csidl value is not valid.
  • The csidl value does not refer to a virtual folder.
  • The csidl value does not refer to a system folder.
  • The csidl value refers to a folder that cannot be renamed or moved.
  • The dwFlags value is not 0 (zero).
  • The pszPath value is NULL.
  • The string pointed to by pszPath value is an empty string ("") of length zero.

Remarks

Note  As of Windows Vista, this function is merely a wrapper for SHSetKnownFolderPath. The CSIDL value is translated to its associated KNOWNFOLDERID and SHSetKnownFolderPath is called. New applications should use the known folder system rather than the older CSIDL system, which is supported only for backward compatibility.
 
SHSetFolderPath is not exported by name from Shell32.dll. To use the function, you must call GetProcAddress with ordinal 231 for SHSetFolderPathA (for ANSI strings) or ordinal 232 for SHSetFolderPathW (for Unicode strings) to obtain a function pointer.

It is recommended that the paths be expressed as Unicode strings because folder names might contain Unicode characters not expressible in ANSI.

Note

The shlobj_core.h header defines SHSetFolderPath as an alias that automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that is not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform Windows
Header shlobj_core.h (include Shlobj.h, Shlobj_core.h)
Library Shell32.lib
DLL Shell32.dll (version 5.0 or later)

See also

IKnownFolder::SetPath