Identifying drive letter of a VB exe

[Matthew624]

Is there a way to get an .exe that is on a CD-ROM to determine the letter of the drive that it is in? I just need the drive letter, no other info. This is in order to run the program entirely from the CD with no setup.exe or install.

Thanks

[ysa1441]

hi, first of all, you must know that vb programs that have been compiled into app.exe need certain dll files. you can download a setupkit that installs them automatically, in the microsoft site(www.microsoft.com).
secondly, you can do this in many ways. here's one of them:
1.
in the app.exe you can add this code and get the drive letter in an integer named "DrvLett":

dim DrvLett as integer

DrvLett = app.Path
DrvLett = mid(DrvLett,1,3)

now if the applications path is : "d:\windows\app\app.exe then DrvLett sould be : "d:\"
hope it works out, bye.

Create a module and use this code

Private Declare Function GetLogicalDriveStrings Lib "kernel32" Alias "GetLogicalDriveStringsA" (ByVal nBufferLength As Long, ByVal lpBuffer As String) As Long

Public Function GetDrives() As Variant
    Dim sDrive() As String
    Dim sDrives As String
    Dim nDrives As Long
    
    sDrives = Space(255)
    sDrives = Left(sDrives, GetLogicalDriveStrings(255, sDrives))
    While Len(sDrives)
        ReDim Preserve sDrive(nDrives)
        sDrive(nDrives) = Left(sDrives, 3)
        nDrives = nDrives + 1
        sDrives = Mid(sDrives, 5)
    Wend
    GetDrives = sDrive
End Function

Then create a function in your VB program that will search for the specific file you are looking for.

Private Function foo()
    Dim FileSystemObject As Object
    
    Dim vDrives As Variant
    Dim nDrive As Long
    Dim temp As String
    vDrives = GetDrives
    Set FileSystemObject = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    For nDrive = 0 To UBound(vDrives)
        temp = vDrives(nDrive) & "filename.exe"
        
        If FileSystemObject.FileExists(temp) Then
            
            foo = vDrives(nDrive)
            Exit For
        End If

    Next
End Function

the Drive you are looking for will be returned by foo()

[/CODE]

Here's how to detect if there's a CD in the CD-Rom and it's drive letter.

Const DRIVE_CDROM = 5

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 Sub Command1_Click()
Dim tmp As Integer
Dim tmpStr As String
Dim Drives As String
Dim CDsCount As Integer
Dim CDsLetters As String

'init Drives to 255 spaces
Drives = Space(255)
'get drives, Drives var will look like
'   A:\<NULL>C:\<NULL>D:\<NULL>E:\<NULL><NULL>
'ret& is the new length of Drives
ret& = GetLogicalDriveStrings(Len(Drives), Drives)
For tmp = 1 To ret& Step 4
 'get a drive root directory (like "C:\")
 tmpStr = Mid(Drives, tmp, 3)
 'if drive is a CD
 If GetDriveType(tmpStr) = DRIVE_CDROM Then
  CDsCount = CDsCount + 1
  CDsLetters = CDsLetters & Left(tmpStr, 1) & " "
 End If
Next tmp
'display results
If CDsCount Then
 MsgBox "Number of CDs Available: " & CDsCount & " - CDs Letters: " & UCase(CDsLetters)
Else
 MsgBox "No CDs Available"
End If
End Sub