Localized ‘Program Files’ and ‘Users’ folders under Windows Vista

If you are wondering why and how Windows Vista or Windows 7 non English versions show different names for ‘Program Files’ folder using Windows Explorer and cmd.exe. The answer is Desktop.ini file hidden inside the folder: [.ShellClassInfo] LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21781 This tells Windows Shell (Explorer) to show localized name instead of English ‘Program Files’.

Change timezone with TZ environment variable in Windows

If your program uses one of the following MFC or CRT function, then you can change timezone using TZ environment variable: CTime::GetLocalTm CTime::Format COleDateTime::operator= ctime _wctime _tctime _ctime64 _wctime64 _tctime64 mktime _mktime64 _utime _wutime _tutime _utime64 _wutime64 _tutime64 For example, to set the TZ environment variable to correspond to the current time zone in Germany, …