still standard folder under Vista

[Ken Ray]

On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 15:40:20 +0200, Tiemo Hollmann TB wrote:

> 1.	what is the difference between a "local" and a "roaming" folder and
> which one should I use for a standard ini file?

Well, the short answer (which I'm 90% sure is correct) is that the 
'roaming' folder is a user profile that can be redirected to another 
location by a system administrator through the Group Policy Object 
Editor application with the Folder Redirection snap-in. Basically, what 
this means is that in a corporate environment, a user's AppData may 
actually be on another machine (say a server) instead of on the client 
machine. So by writing to Roaming, the data will be written for the 
user to wherever the Roaming folder has been redirected, whereas if you 
write to Local, it will be written on the client machine.

There's a wonderful and (oddly for Microsoft) informative white paper 
called "Managing Roaming User Data Deployment Guide" that goes into 
this and more (just do a google search for the full title of the white 
paper - should be the first link).

As to where *you* should write your INI file, that's up to you. If you 
want it to go with the user's profile, wherever it is redirected and 
not tie it to a specific machine, use Roaming. If you don't care, or 
specifically want to tie it to a machine, use Local.

> 2.	On german Vista installation there is a "C:/Users/Tiemo/AppData"
> folder (which is a hidden system folder) AND a "C:Users/Tiemo/Application
> Data" folder, which is always visible. What is the difference?
>
> 3.	If I use e.g. the special folder "26" (CSIDL_APPDATA) my datas are
> put to the hidden "C:/Users/Tiemo/AppData" folder. Which special folder is
> the path to the visible "Application Data"? In Ken's table there is no
> differentiation between these two and I think it could even be a
> german-vista specific topic?

This sounds to me like some third-party app is creating the Application 
Data folder because it is isn't calling on the system to find out the 
path (i.e. they hardcoded a path and just created the folders 
inbetween). As such, there's no special folder path to it.

Ken Ray
Sons of Thunder Software, Inc.
Email: kray at sonsothunder.com
Web Site: http://www.sonsothunder.com/