CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#console-application
a1204773
a1204773

Reputation: 7043

How to get the current directory path of application's shortcut

I want to get the current directory path but not of the application location but of it's shortcut location.

I tried these but they return the application's location.

Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase);
Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
Path.GetDirectoryName(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs()[0]);

Upvotes: 7

Views: 10520

Answers (8)

Dwedit
Dwedit

Reputation: 754

Use GetStartupInfoW, it will tell you the .lnk file that was launched to start the program.

Upvotes: 0

w5l
w5l

Reputation: 5746

If you do not want to use a COM object as suggested in the other answers

You can open the file as a regular text file, split on the \x00 0 char, and inspect the resulting string array. One of them will be obviously the link target: something like "C:\path\to\file" or in case of UNC "\\computers\path\to\file".

string lnkFilePath  "...";

var file = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(lnkFilePath);
var contents = Regex.Split(file, "[\x00]+");
var paths = contents.Where(line => Regex.IsMatch(line, @"^([A-Z]:\\|^\\\\)\S+.*?"));

Upvotes: 0

Rohit
Rohit

Reputation: 10236

I think you will need to use COM and add a reference to "Microsoft Shell Control And Automation", as described in this blog post:

Here's an example using the code provided there:

namespace Shortcut
{
    using System;
    using System.Diagnostics;
    using System.IO;
    using Shell32;

    class Program
    {
        public static string GetShortcutTargetFile(string shortcutFilename)
        {
            string pathOnly = System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(shortcutFilename);
            string filenameOnly = System.IO.Path.GetFileName(shortcutFilename);

            Shell shell = new Shell();
            Folder folder = shell.NameSpace(pathOnly);
            FolderItem folderItem = folder.ParseName(filenameOnly);
            if (folderItem != null)
            {
                Shell32.ShellLinkObject link = (Shell32.ShellLinkObject)folderItem.GetLink;
                return link.Path;
            }

            return string.Empty;
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            const string path = @"C:\link to foobar.lnk";
            Console.WriteLine(GetShortcutTargetFile(path));
        }
    }
}

Upvotes: 1

aked
aked

Reputation: 5815

If adding a COM Object reference is not a problem , Add COM Object Reference - Windows Script Host Object Model

i ran this code in my desktop folder and it did work. for current folder use - Environment.CurrentDirectory

using System;
using System.IO;
using IWshRuntimeLibrary;  //COM object -Windows Script Host Object Model

namespace csCon
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Folder is set to Desktop 
            string dir = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop);
            var di = new DirectoryInfo(dir);
            FileInfo[] fis = di.GetFiles();
            if (fis.Length > 0)
            {
                foreach (FileInfo fi in fis)
                {
                    if (fi.FullName.EndsWith("lnk"))
                    {
                        IWshShell shell = new WshShell();
                        var lnk = shell.CreateShortcut(fi.FullName) as IWshShortcut;
                        if (lnk != null)
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine("Link name: {0}", lnk.FullName);
                            Console.WriteLine("link target: {0}", lnk.TargetPath);
                            Console.WriteLine("link working: {0}", lnk.WorkingDirectory);
                            Console.WriteLine("description: {0}", lnk.Description);
                        }

                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

enter image description here

Code Reference from Forum : http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/658928-c%23-resolve-lnk-files/

Upvotes: 4

Tom Blodget
Tom Blodget

Reputation: 20802

Since creating the shortcut is part of the workflow, just set the working directory to "%cd%" for the shortcut then, in the app, use:

Environment.CurrentDirectory

Obviously, you would want to capture this value before any code your app calls can change it.

When creating a shortcut using Windows Explorer, you don't have the option of setting the working directory. So, after creating it, open its property page by right-clicking on it and selecting Properties, then set the Start in field to %cd%. After creating such a shortcut, you can move or copy it to the folders in which you want the app to run.

Upvotes: 0

Luiz Freneda
Luiz Freneda

Reputation: 112

using System.Reflection;

 string currentAssemblyDirectoryName = Path.GetDirectoryName(
                                        Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly()
                                                .Location
                                        );

Also for webapplications you can use:

Web Applications: 

Request.PhysicalApplicationPath

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.httprequest.physicalapplicationpath.aspx

to grap the applicationpath :)

Upvotes: 0

Jake H
Jake H

Reputation: 1740

According to the process API reference in MSDN, the process STARTUPINFO struct for a given process contains the information about the shortcut .lnk file in the title member. There is a flag present in the dwFlags struct member that is set when this is the case - so it appears that this is not always set (im guessing if you ran the exe directly)

From MSDN:

STARTF_TITLEISLINKNAME: 0x00000800

The lpTitle member contains the path of the shortcut file (.lnk) that the user invoked to start this process. This is typically set by the shell when a .lnk file pointing to the launched application is invoked. Most applications will not need to set this value. This flag cannot be used with STARTF_TITLEISAPPID.

Reference here.

Upvotes: 6

Daniel Imms
Daniel Imms

Reputation: 50189

Try this:

Environment.CurrentDirectory

From MSDN:

Gets or sets the fully qualified path of the current working directory.

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions