How to reference the C:\Users\Public directory programmatically in C#

Question

Is it safe to programmatically reference the public folder through:

Directory = System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("public")+"MyCompanyName" // etc.

or is there a better way?

Again, what if someone deletes the environment variable for public, and is this safe to use for different language OSs?

This follows: How to install to the Public directory in Windows 7 from the VS 2010 deployment Setup Project

Answer 1

This seems a tad questionable, but it should work:

// This should give you something like C:\Users\Public\Documents
string documentsPath = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonDocuments);

var directory = new DirectoryInfo(documentsPath);

// Now this should give you something like C:\Users\Public
string commonPath = directory.Parent.FullName;

Answer 2

It depends on what you want to achieve. There is a enum called SpecialFolder. You can use it to get the Path to some Directories. For Example:

System.Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonDesktopDirectory)

points to "C:\Users\Public\Desktop".

IMHO, your way isn't wrong, though i would do some Exception Handling in case the EnvVar is really missing. Also you could use the ENUM with "CommonDesktopDirectory" and get rid of the "\Desktop" part.