C# get location of knownfolder by ID

Question

I want to get the location of a directory/folder by its ID.
For example, the Downloads folder has the ID knownfolder:{374DE290-123F-4565-9164-39C4925E467B}, when I enter it into the address bar of windows explorer, it redirects my to the downloads folder.

There is a list of these IDs and the corresponding folders here, so I could hardcode the IDs and look them up like this, but I wouldnt want to do this unless its the only way.

Is there another way to properly get what I want?

Answer 1

Stolen from here. Looking at this further, the only way to do it is using a WinAPI/PInvoke

public static class KnownFolderFinder
{
    private static readonly Guid CommonDocumentsGuid = new Guid("ED4824AF-DCE4-45A8-81E2-FC7965083634");

    [Flags]
    public enum KnownFolderFlag : uint
    {
        None = 0x0,
        CREATE = 0x8000,
        DONT_VERFIY = 0x4000,
        DONT_UNEXPAND= 0x2000,
        NO_ALIAS = 0x1000,
        INIT = 0x800,
        DEFAULT_PATH = 0x400,
        NOT_PARENT_RELATIVE = 0x200,
        SIMPLE_IDLIST = 0x100,
        ALIAS_ONLY = 0x80000000
    }

    [DllImport("shell32.dll")]
    static extern int SHGetKnownFolderPath([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStruct)] Guid rfid, uint dwFlags, IntPtr hToken, out IntPtr pszPath);

    public static string GetFolderFromKnownFolderGUID(Guid guid)
    {
        return pinvokePath(guid, KnownFolderFlag.DEFAULT_PATH);
    }

    public static void EnumerateKnownFolders()
    {
        KnownFolderFlag[] flags = new KnownFolderFlag[] {
            KnownFolderFlag.None,
            KnownFolderFlag.ALIAS_ONLY | KnownFolderFlag.DONT_VERFIY,
            KnownFolderFlag.DEFAULT_PATH | KnownFolderFlag.NOT_PARENT_RELATIVE,
        };


        foreach (var flag in flags)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0}; P/Invoke==>{1}", flag, pinvokePath(CommonDocumentsGuid, flag)));
        }
        Console.ReadLine();
    }

    private static string pinvokePath(Guid guid, KnownFolderFlag flags)
    {
        IntPtr pPath;
        SHGetKnownFolderPath(guid, (uint)flags, IntPtr.Zero, out pPath); // public documents

        string path = System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.PtrToStringUni(pPath);
        System.Runtime.InteropServices.Marshal.FreeCoTaskMem(pPath);
        return path;
    }
}

And you could then call something like this:

var folder = KnownFolderFinder.GetFolderFromKnownFolderGUID(new Guid("374DE290-123F-4565-9164-39C4925E467B");

Answer 2

I think you're looking for Environment.SpecialFolder (System Namespace):

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.environment.specialfolder(v=vs.110).aspx

 // Sample for the Environment.GetFolderPath method
using System;

class Sample 
{
    public static void Main() 
{
Console.WriteLine();
Console.WriteLine("GetFolderPath: {0}", 
             Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.System));
}
  }
/*
This example produces the following results:

GetFolderPath: C:\WINNT\System32
*/