%appdata% variable not defined when using runas

[LoWang]

Hello, I know I should rather ask this on some Microsoft forum, but maybe some people here will know. This is what you get when you type this command

d:\utils>echo %appdata%
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data

but this is what you get if you first do runas /u:anotheruser cmd and in this cmd line do the same

C:\WINDOWS\system32>echo %appdata%
%appdata%

The command "set" shows all the environment variables and %appdata% is not defined even if the folder exists for this user! This can cause serious troubles when installing applications via runas and I would like to know WTH does this mean, if this is the default in XP and if I can change some settings somewhere to fix this.

This problem does not occur on windows 7...

Thank you for ideas

Edited September 5, 2011 by LoWang

[PAEz]

Cool, a question I can help with

%appdata% isnt always set for xp, cant remember what the rules where....it is in vista and up tho.

Here's some code I use to get the directory (I needed it to find Chrome).....

Const $CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA = 28
Const $CSIDL_APPDATA = 26
 
Local $AppData = SHGetSpecialFolderPath($CSIDL_APPDATA)
 
MsgBox(0, "", $AppData)
 
Func SHGetSpecialFolderPath($csidl)
;hwndOwner
;Reserved.
 
;lpszPath
;[out] A pointer to a null-terminated string that receives the drive and path of the
;specified folder. This buffer must be at least MAX_PATH characters in size.
 
;csidl
;[in] A CSIDL that identifies the folder of interest. If a virtual folder is specified
;, this function will fail.
 
;fCreate
;[in] Indicates whether the folder should be created if it does not already exist. If
;this value is nonzero, the folder is created. If this value is zero, the folder is
;not created.
Local $hwndOwner = 0 , $lpszPath = "" , $fCreate = False , $MAX_PATH = 260
$lpszPath = DllStructCreate("char[" & $MAX_PATH & "]")
 
$BOOL = DllCall("shell32.dll","int","SHGetSpecialFolderPath","int",$hwndOwner,"ptr", DllStructGetPtr($lpszPath),"int",$csidl,"int",$fCreate)
if Not @error Then
Return SetError($BOOL[0],0,DllStructGetData($lpszPath,1))
Else
Return SetError(@error,0,3)
EndIf
EndFunc

Edit: Sorry I listed it with localappdata and you wanted appdata, updated with both.

You can get a list of the special directory ids here....

http://code.snapstream.com/api/bm11/SnapStream.Util.CSIDL.html

Edited September 5, 2011 by PAEz

[BrewManNH]

Try it with @AppDataDir instead of trying to use the environment variable.