Introduction
The Win32 API provides a robust set of functions for interacting with the file system on Windows. These functions allow applications to create, read, write, delete, and manage files and directories. Understanding these functions is crucial for developing any application that needs to persist data or interact with the underlying operating system's storage.
File Creation & Opening
These functions are used to create new files or open existing ones, specifying access rights and sharing modes.
CreateFile
Opens or creates a file or device.
CreateFile2
Creates or opens a handle to a specified file.
OpenFile
Opens an existing file or creates a new file.
File Reading & Writing
Functions for reading data from and writing data to files.
ReadFile
Reads data from a file or input buffer.
WriteFile
Writes data to a file or output buffer.
ReadFileEx
Reads data from a file or device, using overlapped I/O.
WriteFileEx
Writes data to a file or device, using overlapped I/O.
File Positioning
Control the current read/write position within a file.
SetFilePointer
Moves the file pointer of the specified file to a location.
SetFilePointerEx
Moves the file pointer of the specified file to a location.
GetFileSizeEx
Retrieves the size of the specified file.
File Closing
Release resources associated with an open file handle.
CloseHandle
Closes an open object handle.
File Information
Retrieve metadata and attributes about files.
GetFileAttributes
Retrieves the attributes of a file or directory.
GetFileAttributesEx
Retrieves file attributes for a specified file or directory.
FindFirstFile
Searches a directory for a file or subdirectory that matches a specified format.
FindNextFile
Searches a directory for a file or subdirectory that matches a specified format.
FindClose
Closes the search handle and releases all resources associated with the find operation.
Directory Management
Operations related to creating, deleting, and manipulating directories.
CreateDirectory
Creates a new directory.
CreateDirectoryEx
Creates a new directory with specified attributes and security descriptor.
RemoveDirectory
Deletes an existing empty directory.
GetCurrentDirectory
Retrieves the current directory for the current process.
SetCurrentDirectory
Changes the current directory for the current process.
File Attributes
Functions to set and modify file attributes.
SetFileAttributes
Sets the attributes of a file or directory.
SetFileAttributesEx
Sets the attributes for a specified file or directory.
Other Operations
Additional useful file system operations.
CopyFile
Copies an existing file to a new location.
MoveFile
Moves an existing file or directory from one location to another.
DeleteFile
Deletes an existing file.
CreateHardLink
Creates a hard link to an existing file.
CreateSymbolicLink
Creates a symbolic link.