How do I structure folders under LocalApplicationData?

Question

I’m looking into the special folders which have enumerations, such as the LocalApplicationData. On my Windows 7 machine I’ve seen what’s there, and first I see several sub-folders that are GUID’s. I’ve no idea what they are, and presume them to be something that Microsoft puts in for whatever.

Next I see folders named after various companies, like Adobe, Apple, Citrix, Microsoft, etc. However, when I go into each of these sub-folders I’ll see more sub-folders, e.g. under Adobe I see sub-folders named Acrobat, Color, Reader 9.3 and Updater6. So when I go to re-write our application, do I adopt a similar structure, something like \OurCompany\App1, \OurCompany\App2, etc.? Or can we just put all of our various applications data into \OurCompany? What I’m asking for is what is standard procedure, or best practice?

Answer 1

If your company only makes one product and there is only going to be one version of it, then the structure doesn't matter - but it is better to plan for a more positive outcome :)

As you have seen from the other companies/products you have installed, having a folder structure that includes the company name, product name, and possibly version will all help to avoid clashes. You could avoid using folders and just use some file name convention, but you may find that you need multiple files in the future and it is simpler to start off with folders. They don't cost much.

As for the question of whether to include the version number or not, the key issue is whether it makes sense to have multiple versions of the same product co-existing at the same time. Not all products need this and some apps will upgrade the settings or have code to read data in the old format. Bear in mind that for data under the roaming area (ApplicationData not LocalApplicationData) may be visible to different versions of the same application installed on different machines.