What is the meaning of these Windows Enviroment variables: HOMEDRIVE, HOMEPATH, HOMESHARE, USERPROFILE

Question

What is the meaning of these Windows Enviroment variables:

• HOMEDRIVE,
• HOMEPATH,
• HOMESHARE,
• and USERPROFILE?

Who set them? When? Who use them? For doing what?

How the configuration of the samba server modify these variables?

Thanks!

Answer 1

if you go to the run box and type any of the above like this

%HOMEPATH%

then it will go to your environment path that is set on your machine. It's usefull when writing vb scrips and things like that where you want to perform a task on the users profile area for example.

Hope this helps

Answer 2

Those are all set on login, and they are, as SocialAddict said, very useful in scripts when you need to perform an action on different systems.

I'm not too clear on your other question, a samba server shouldn't care about those variables.

See http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/environment.htm for a detailed explanation.

Answer 3

Here is a more comprehensive list of Windows Environment Variables with their locations on:

• Windows XP
• Vista

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment%5Fvariable#Default%5FValues%5Fon%5FMicrosoft%5FWindows