Find the path of notepad.exe and mspaint.exe

winapi search filesystems filepath
Heng-Cheong Leong picture Heng-Cheong Leong · Feb 6, 2009 · Viewed 94.1k times · Source

What is the best way to find out where notepad.exe and mspaint.exe are that will work across various versions of Windows?

Should I get the Windows directory via SHGetFolderPath(NULL, CSIDL_WINDOWS, NULL, SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT, dir), and then traverse through all the subdirectories to look for the two files?

(Assume that I am not interested in anything outside the Windows folder.)

Answer

paxdiablo picture paxdiablo · Feb 6, 2009

This works on every Windows box I've got access to (XP+).

c:\> for %i in (cmd.exe) do @echo %~$PATH:i
C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe

c:\> for %i in (python.exe) do @echo %~$PATH:i
C:\Python25\python.exe

The great thing is, you don't have to use the actual %PATH%, you can substitute your own search path by using a different environment variable.

Related questions

Is it possible to "decompile" a Windows .exe? Or at least view the Assembly?

A friend of mine downloaded some malware from Facebook, and I'm curious to see what it does without infecting myself. I know that you can't really decompile an .exe, but can I at least view it in Assembly or attach …

Read More
How to provide user name and password when connecting to a network share

When connecting to a network share for which the current user (in my case, a network enabled service user) has no rights, name and password have to be provided. I know how to do this with Win32 functions (the WNet* …

Read More
What exactly are DLL files, and how do they work?

How exactly do DLL files work? There seems to be an awful lot of them, but I don't know what they are or how they work. So, what's the deal with them?

Read More