How can I convert a native (NT) pathname into a Win32 path name?

Question

I'm working on reporting some information gleaned from native system APIs. (I know this is bad.... but I'm getting information that I can't get otherwise, and I have little issue with having to update my app if/when that time comes around.)

The native API returns native pathnames, as seen by ob, i.e. \SystemRoot\System32\Ntoskrnl.exe, or \??\C:\Program Files\VMWare Workstation\vstor-ws60.sys.

I can replace common prefixes, i.e.

std::wstring NtPathToWin32Path( std::wstring ntPath )
{
    if (boost::starts_with(ntPath, L"\\\\?\\"))
    {
        ntPath.erase(ntPath.begin(), ntPath.begin() + 4);
        return ntPath;
    }
    if (boost::starts_with(ntPath, L"\\??\\"))
    {
        ntPath.erase(ntPath.begin(), ntPath.begin() + 4);
    }
    if (boost::starts_with(ntPath, L"\\"))
    {
        ntPath.erase(ntPath.begin(), ntPath.begin() + 1);
    }
    if (boost::istarts_with(ntPath, L"globalroot\\"))
    {
        ntPath.erase(ntPath.begin(), ntPath.begin() + 11);
    }
    if (boost::istarts_with(ntPath, L"systemroot"))
    {
        ntPath.replace(ntPath.begin(), ntPath.begin() + 10, GetWindowsPath());
    }
    if (boost::istarts_with(ntPath, L"windows"))
    {
        ntPath.replace(ntPath.begin(), ntPath.begin() + 7, GetWindowsPath());
    }
    return ntPath;
}

TEST(Win32Path, NtPathDoubleQuestions)
{
    ASSERT_EQ(L"C:\\Example", NtPathToWin32Path(L"\\??\\C:\\Example"));
}

TEST(Win32Path, NtPathUncBegin)
{
    ASSERT_EQ(L"C:\\Example", NtPathToWin32Path(L"\\\\?\\C:\\Example"));
}

TEST(Win32Path, NtPathWindowsStart)
{
    ASSERT_EQ(GetCombinedPath(GetWindowsPath(), L"Hello\\World"), NtPathToWin32Path(L"\\Windows\\Hello\\World"));
}

TEST(Win32Path, NtPathSystemrootStart)
{
    ASSERT_EQ(GetCombinedPath(GetWindowsPath(), L"Hello\\World"), NtPathToWin32Path(L"\\SystemRoot\\Hello\\World"));
}

TEST(Win32Path, NtPathGlobalRootSystemRoot)
{
    ASSERT_EQ(GetCombinedPath(GetWindowsPath(), L"Hello\\World"), NtPathToWin32Path(L"\\globalroot\\SystemRoot\\Hello\\World"));
}

but I'd be strongly surprised if there's not some API, native or otherwise, which will convert these into Win32 path names. Does such an API exist?

Answer 1

We do this in production code. As far as I know there is no API (public or private) that handles this. We just do some string comparisons with a few prefixes and it works for us.

Apparently there is a function named RtlNtPathNameToDosPathName() in ntdll.dll (introduced with XP?), but I have no idea what it does; I would guess it has more to do with stuff like \Device\Harddisk0, though.

I'm not sure there is really a need for such a function, though. Win32 passes paths (in the sense of CreateFile, etc) to NT; NT doesn't pass paths to Win32. So ntdll.dll doesn't really have a need to go from NT paths to Win32 paths. In the rare case where some NT query function returns a full path, any conversion function could be internal to the Win32 dll (e.g. not exported). I don't even know if they bother, as stuff like GetModuleFileName() will just return whatever path was used to load the image. I guess this is just a leaky abstraction.