Technical Q&A QTW100

Where do QuickTime extension files reside on Windows systems?

Q: I'm creating a QuickTime extension (both a .qtx data fork and a .qtr resource fork file) and I'd like to know where to place the files so QuickTime will find them on Windows Systems.

A: There's an easy way to determine where they go -- use the QuickTime 7 GetQTExtensionDirectory function. This function returns the path of the QuickTime Extensions directory.

Here's a code snippet showing how to use this function:

Listing 1: Calling the GetQTExtensionDirectory to located the QuickTime extensions directory.

void doGetQTExtDirectory()
{
    char buffer[MAX_PATH+1];

    /* get the QuickTime extensions directory */
    UINT strLength = GetQTExtensionDirectory(buffer, MAX_PATH+1);
    if (strLength > 0)
    {
        /*

        the buffer now contains the extensions directory string...

        */
    }
    else
    {
        /* Get the system error message for the last-error code */

        DWORD lastErrCode = GetLastError();

        /*

        handle error here...

        */
    }
}

There are also functions for locating the various other directories created by the QuickTime installer, such as the GetQTApplicationDirectory function for finding the QuickTime Applications directory, the GetQTComponentDirectory function for finding the QuickTime Components directory, and so on.

See the QuickTime 7 for Windows Update Guide for more information.

For versions prior to QuickTime 7, use the string returned by the Win32 GetSystemDirectory function concatenated with the string "\QuickTime".

On Windows NT and Windows 2000, that's the

C:\Windows\System32\QuickTime

directory, and on Windows 95 and Windows 98, that's the

C:\Windows\System\QuickTime

directory.

QuickTime will also look in the system directory itself, but we prefer you put them in the folder "QuickTime" inside the system directory.

Document Revision History

Posted: 2007-07-30