Find system folder locations in Python

I found a slightly different way of doing it. This way will give you the location of various system folders and uses real words instead of CLSIDs.

import win32com.client
objShell = win32com.client.Dispatch("WScript.Shell")
allUserDocs = objShell.SpecialFolders("AllUsersDesktop")
print allUserDocs

Other available folders: AllUsersDesktop, AllUsersStartMenu, AllUsersPrograms, AllUsersStartup, Desktop, Favorites, Fonts, MyDocuments, NetHood, PrintHood, Recent, SendTo, StartMenu, Startup & Templates

In Windows 7 I can use the following environment variables to access the folders I need:

>>> import os
>>> os.environ['USERPROFILE']
'C:\\Users\\digginc'
>>> os.environ['PROGRAMFILES']
'C:\\Program Files'

To get the "My Documents" folder, you can use:

from win32com.shell import shell
df = shell.SHGetDesktopFolder()
pidl = df.ParseDisplayName(0, None,  
    "::{450d8fba-ad25-11d0-98a8-0800361b1103}")[1]
mydocs = shell.SHGetPathFromIDList(pidl)
print mydocs

From here.

I'm not sure what the equivalent magic incantation is for "Program Files", but that should hopefully be enough to get you started.