5 ms·

When did ProgramData and AppData become a thing? Is there a guide somewhere about what should be placed in each folder? Local, LocalLow, Roaming? Seems like the

• wbkang 5y ago
  ProgramData is the global application storage. AppData has been there since at least XP. Local is intended to be specific to this computer whereas roaming is something that is user specific that can be available across machines. The closest thing I can find is this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/knownfolderid https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/shell/knownfo...
  • jopsen 5y ago
    Compared to the XDG directory specification that MSDN link is garbage. Just my personal opinion.
• dragonwriter 5y ago
  Sometime before 2008 (and, since the change isn't the kind MS tends to do during a major OS version lifecycle, probably with or prior to the release of Vista in 2007) though the documentation on it (not just when it happened, but how to use them best) seems to be well-obscured. But here's a post originally from 2008 covering Windows Vista which is the least-bad coverage of ProgramData/AppData I can find: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-blog-archive/where-should-i-write-program-data-instead-of-program-files/ba-p/228513 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-blog-archive/... (My personal recollection is that it is much earlier, at least back to XP, but I could be wrong, so I’ll go with what I can find documented.)
  • noisem4ker 5y ago
    XP introduced Documents and Settings. Vista changed that to Users.