Where to best store app data on Windows
Oct 05 2013 | 11:23 am
For a standalone app I need to store some external data, so it's not overwritten when the app is updated or replaced with a new version.
On OSX this is straightforward. I just write stuff to ~/Library/Application Support/Myapp. I am pretty safe to assume that I have permissions to create that directory and write things in it.
On Windows I'm not sure about this. I haven't used the platform for ages but afaik there is "Program Files" but also possibly "Program Files x86_64" or something. And it is typically located on C:/ but it could be any other drive.
What would be a sensible approach? Are there any helper functions in Max or the SDK that can be used figure out a location on any Windows system that won't get me into trouble?
- Oct 05 2013 | 3:23 pmI found some standard W32 api. Makes sense to use that straight from my code. I wasn't thinking clearly :)TCHAR pf[MAX_PATH]; SHGetSpecialFolderPath( 0, pf, CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES, FALSE );
- Oct 05 2013 | 6:35 pmIMHO, on a multi-user machine CSIDL_APPDATA would probably be better.
- Oct 09 2013 | 8:35 pmThanks for the advice Emmanuel. I'll try that.
