GetLogicalDriveStringsW function (fileapi.h)

Fills a buffer with strings that specify valid drives in the system.

Syntax

DWORD GetLogicalDriveStringsW(
  [in]  DWORD  nBufferLength,
  [out] LPWSTR lpBuffer
);

Parameters

[in] nBufferLength

The maximum size of the buffer pointed to by lpBuffer, in TCHARs. This size does not include the terminating null character. If this parameter is zero, lpBuffer is not used.

[out] lpBuffer

A pointer to a buffer that receives a series of null-terminated strings, one for each valid drive in the system, plus with an additional null character. Each string is a device name.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is the length, in characters, of the strings copied to the buffer, not including the terminating null character. Note that an ANSI-ASCII null character uses one byte, but a Unicode (UTF-16) null character uses two bytes.

If the buffer is not large enough, the return value is greater than nBufferLength. It is the size of the buffer required to hold the drive strings.

If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, use the GetLastError function.

Remarks

Each string in the buffer may be used wherever a root directory is required, such as for the GetDriveType and GetDiskFreeSpace functions.

This function returns a concatenation of the drives in the Global and Local MS-DOS Device namespaces. If a drive exists in both namespaces, this function will return the entry in the Local MS-DOS Device namespace. For more information, see Defining an MS DOS Device Name.

In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, this function is supported by the following technologies.

Technology Supported
Server Message Block (SMB) 3.0 protocol No
SMB 3.0 Transparent Failover (TFO) No
SMB 3.0 with Scale-out File Shares (SO) No
Cluster Shared Volume File System (CsvFS) Yes
Resilient File System (ReFS) Yes
 

SMB does not support volume management functions.

Examples

For an example, see Obtaining a File Name From a File Handle.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client Windows XP [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform Windows
Header fileapi.h (include Windows.h)
Library Kernel32.lib
DLL Kernel32.dll

See also

GetDiskFreeSpace

GetDriveType

GetLogicalDrives

Volume Management Functions