How to detect how many drives that a computer has ?

[hank_heng]

Hi,

I'm trying to build a directory selection Treeview, but I having problem detecting all the available drives from a computer, i.e, how would I know that a computer has 4 hard drive and 3 floppy drive, not to mention that it might have another 2 zip drive and 1 CD-Rom....

And, is there any way I can get the directory of the Desktop ? I found out that on some system and for some reason their directory was not "C:\Windows\Desktop". This is because I need to put a "My Computer" Icon on the top of the TreeView as a node.

Oh... can all of the problem mentions above be solve with some API call or I just need to download some fancy OCX or ActiveX control ?

Well, thanks for reading this, and thanks again if you halp me out. Have a nice day(or night)


Hank
----
A computer programmer, is the soul creators, for computers.

[chrisjk]

You asked this before didn't you!?

Why don't you download the fancy OCX from the web site URL that was given to you on the last post. I did - it's really good. You just slap it on a form and your ready to whirl!

[hank_heng]

Oh... miss that out... hehe Thanks for telling me.


Hank
----
A computer programmers, is that soul creator, for computers.

[Aaron Young]

In case in the true spirit of programming you're still interested in how you would have done it, here's an example I put together, just add a Listbox to a Form..

Private Declare Function GetLogicalDriveStrings Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetLogicalDriveStringsA" (ByVal nBufferLength As Long, ByVal lpBuffer As String) As Long
Private Declare Function GetDriveType Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetDriveTypeA" (ByVal nDrive As String) As Long
Private Const DRIVE_CDROM = 5
Private Const DRIVE_FIXED = 3
Private Const DRIVE_RAMDISK = 6
Private Const DRIVE_REMOTE = 4
Private Const DRIVE_REMOVABLE = 2

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Dim sDrives As String
    Dim sDrive As String
    
    sDrives = Space(255)
    sDrives = Left$(sDrives, GetLogicalDriveStrings(255, sDrives))
    While Len(sDrives)
        sDrive = UCase(Left$(sDrives, 3) & Space(10))
        sDrives = Mid$(sDrives, 5)
        Select Case GetDriveType(Trim(sDrive))
        Case DRIVE_CDROM
            sDrive = sDrive & "CD-ROM"
        Case DRIVE_FIXED
            sDrive = sDrive & "HDD (Fixed)"
        Case DRIVE_RAMDISK
            sDrive = sDrive & "RAM Disk"
        Case DRIVE_REMOTE
            sDrive = sDrive & "Remote (Network)"
        Case DRIVE_REMOVABLE
            sDrive = sDrive & "Removable (Diskette)"
        Case Else
            sDrive = sDrive & "Unknown"
        End Select
        List1.AddItem sDrive
    Wend
End Sub

------------------
Aaron Young
Analyst Programmer
[email protected]
[email protected]

[hank_heng]

Hi,

Thanks Aaron, I've been trying to cut down my program size with less OCX, so I think I'll go for program one Folder TreeView myself, beside, the process is fun.

Oh... but no one answer my question on how to I detect where is the Desktop location, I found out that not all system has it at "C:\Windows\Desktop\"

So... anyone please help...

Hank
----
A computer programmer, is the soul creators, for computers.

[Serge]

Sure. To get the Desktop folder path, use this:

Private Const CSIDL_DESKTOP = &H0
Private Const MAX_PATH = 255
Private Declare Function SHGetSpecialFolderLocation Lib "Shell32" (ByVal hwndOwner As Long, ByVal nFolder As Integer, ppidl As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function SHGetPathFromIDList Lib "Shell32" Alias "SHGetPathFromIDListA" (ByVal pidl As Long, ByVal szPath As String) As Long

Public Function GetDesktopFolderPath(ByVal pHwnd As Long) As String
    Dim lReturn As Long
    Dim lPidl   As Long
    Dim lPath   As Long
    Dim sPath   As String

    sPath = Space$(MAX_PATH)
    lReturn = SHGetSpecialFolderLocation(pHwnd, CSIDL_DESKTOP, lPidl)  ' Get lPidl for Id...
    If lReturn = 0 Then                                    ' If success is 0
        lReturn = SHGetPathFromIDList(lPidl, sPath)        '   Get Path from Item Id List
        If lReturn = 1 Then                                '   If success is 1
            sPath = Left(sPath, InStr(sPath, vbNullChar) - 1)             '     Fix path string
            GetDesktopFolderPath = sPath                    '     Return Desktop path
        End If
    End If
End Function

Then you can call this function to get the path of the desktop folder:


Dim strPath As String

strPath = GetDesktopFolderPath(Me.Hwnd)


strPath now holds the path to the Desktop.

------------------

Serge

Programmer Analyst
[email protected]
[email protected]
ICQ#: 51055819



[This message has been edited by Serge (edited 02-01-2000).]

[Frederik Gekiere]

if you want to use a 'Browse for folder'-dialog box, then check out the following URL:
http://www.vbsquare.com/tips/tip180.html