Per user dirs on Non-Unix platforms (was Re: [Python-Dev] Where to install non-code files)

[Neil Hodgson]

Gordon writes,

> But there's no $HOME as such.
>
> There's
> HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\S
> hell Folders with around 16 subkeys, including AppData
> (which on my system has one entry installed by a program I've
> never used and didn't know I had). But MSOffice uses the
> Personal subkey. Others seem to use the Desktop subkey.

   SHGetSpecialFolderPath(,,CSIDL_APPDATA,) would be the current 'MS
preferred' method for this as it allows roaming (not that I've ever seen
roaming work). If Unix code expects $HOME to be per machine (and so used to
store, for example, window locations which are dependent on screen
resolution) then CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA would be a better choice.

   To make these work on 9x and NT 4 Microsoft provides a redistributable
Shfolder.dll.

   Fred writes,

>  Look at your $HOME on Unix box; most of the dotfiles are *files*, not
> directories, and that's all most applications need;

   This may have been the case in the past and for people who understand
Unix well enough to maintain it, but for us just-want-it-to-run folks, its
no longer true. I formatted my Linux partition this week and installed Red
Hat 6.2 and Gnome 1.2 and then used a few applications. The dot directories
outnumber the dot files 18 to 16.

   Neil