Question

I’m using GetOpenFileName and setting the lpstrInitialDir member of the OPENFILENAME struct to the directory I want as the initial directory. However on Win7 my app seems to remember what directory the user last opened and it ignores the lpstrInitialDir settings and goes to the last directory.

Apparently this is by design

lpstrInitialDir
LPCTSTR
The initial directory.
The algorithm for selecting the initial directory varies on different platforms.

Windows 7:

1.If lpstrInitialDir has the same value as was passed the first time the
application used an Open or Save As
dialog box, the path most recently
selected by the user is used as the
initial directory.
2.Otherwise, if lpstrFile contains a path, that path is the initial
directory.
3.Otherwise, if lpstrInitialDir is not NULL, it specifies the initial
directory.

Does anyone know how to stop this happening?

I want the directory I specify to be the initial directory regardless of what the file the user last opened i.e. I want condition 3 above to apply. I did the obvious and had a search through the registry but I couldn’t find anything related to the problem.

Answer 1

What happens if you set lpstrFile to the required initial directory path (i.e. lpstrInitialDir). If you are using lpstrFile to specify filename, then you may need to prepend initial directory path to the filename.