Where Should I Store my Data and Configuration Files if I Target Multiple OS Versions ?

Over the past few releases of Windows, you may have noticed common folder locations have moved around a bit.  What should you do if you want your code to target multiple OS’s? Perhaps you are updating an application from XP to Windows 7 and wondering where those old directories went. Hopefully, this post will answer those questions and help you design your application to continue to work with future OS releases.

What’s the Recommended Location for Application Files?

Where to store application files depends on how that data is used by the application and the user. Here is a table to outline the recommended locations for user documents and configuration data.  I’ve mapped the locations across OS’s in this giant table for comparison.

Type of Data	Example	Windows 7	Vista	XP	Environment Variable	Known Folder ID / System.Environment.SpecialFolder / CSIDL
Per user configuration files synchronized across domain joined machines via Active Directory Roaming	MyAppSettings.xml	%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming \<MyCompany>\<MyApp>	%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming \<MyCompany>\<MyApp>	%USERPROFILE%\Application Data \<MyCompany>\<MyApp>	%APPDATA%	FOLDERID_RoamingAppData System.Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData CSIDL_APPDATA
Local Per user configuration files. Files remain local to the machine.	MyMachineSpecificData.xml	%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local \<MyCompany>\<MyApp>	%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local \<MyCompany>\<MyApp>	%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings \Application Data \<MyCompany>\<MyApp>	%LOCALAPPDATA% Note: Does not exist on XP	FOLDERID_LocalAppData System.Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA
Per machine Configuration data	AppConfigDatabase.xml	%SystemDrive%\ProgramData \MyCompany\MyApp	%SystemDrive%\ProgramData \MyCompany\MyApp	%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data	Vista/Win7: %PROGRAMDATA% XP: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%	FOLDERID_ProgramData System.Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA

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Read more: Pat's Application Compatibility Blog

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