Windows Installation Folders

Question

Where do I find a definitive guide as to where, when I am installing a new application into Windows, the application exe's, database tables, configuration files should go?

Also guidelines to which registry keys should be used for persisting user and application data.

Best regards,

Simon

Answer 1

Check out Microsoft's suggestions: Windows File System Namespace Usage Guidelines seems to be what you want. (the file name is slightly misleading - the downloadable PDF file shows these guidelines both for Windows Vista and Windows XP)

To find and query those programatically, see the MSDN Known Folders topic; also see the list of common Known Folder constants. Simplest example for SHGetKnownFolderPath and the Startup folder:

SHGetKnownFolderPath(
    FOLDERID_Startup,
    0,
    NULL,
    path_will_be_here_when_function_returns
)

Answer 2

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms995853.aspx