Question

My Google-Fu is weak today, hopefully this is a simple thing.

I need to set the InitDir property of a VB6 CommonDialog control to start at [My] Computer. If I set InitDir to an empty string, it just defaults to the current directory from the last open dialog.

My code:

With MyCommonDialogControl
    .DialogTitle = "Choose Import File"
    .Filter = "Import Files|*.dbf"
    .InitDir = Environ("HOMEDRIVE") //Needs to be "My Computer"
    .CancelError = False
    .ShowOpen
    If Len(.Filename) = 0 Then Exit Sub
    InputFile = .Filename
End With

Thank you in advance for any assistance.

Answer 1

I’ve come across a couple of ways to do it – one is through the Environ method which appears to work in both VB6 and VBA – although I’ve never used this method, the other is through p/Invoke referencing: SHGetSpecialFolderLocation and SHGetPathFromIDList in the shell32.dll.

I didn’t have the code to hand, so I’ve copied and pasted from another site http://en.kioskea.net/faq/sujet-951-vba-vb6-my-documents-environment-variables

I can’t guarantee the correctness, but it looks very similar to code I’ve used in the past, so it should work with minimal debugging… anyway, at least it points you in the right direction.

Option Explicit
Private Type SHITEMID
    cb As Long
    abID As Byte
End Type
Private Type ITEMIDLIST
    mkid As SHITEMID
End Type
Private Const CSIDL_PERSONAL As Long = &H5
Private Declare Function SHGetSpecialFolderLocation Lib "shell32.dll" _
                        (ByVal hwndOwner As Long, ByVal nFolder As Long, _
                         pidl As ITEMIDLIST) As Long
Private Declare Function SHGetPathFromIDList Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "SHGetPathFromIDListA" _
                        (ByVal pidl As Long, ByVal pszPath As String) As Long


Public Function Rep_Documents() As String
    Dim lRet As Long, IDL As ITEMIDLIST, sPath As String
    lRet = SHGetSpecialFolderLocation(100&, CSIDL_PERSONAL, IDL)
    If lRet = 0 Then
        sPath = String$(512, Chr$(0))
        lRet = SHGetPathFromIDList(ByVal IDL.mkid.cb, ByVal sPath)
        Rep_Documents = Left$(sPath, InStr(sPath, Chr$(0)) - 1)
    Else
        Rep_Documents = vbNullString
    End If
End Function

Referencing Rep_Documents() will give you a string holding the path name of the My Documents folder. It’s just a case of assigning it to the file dialog’s InitDir property.