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How to Get the Target Folder

I was just at Open directory dialog, and they said "get this package, and do this and this to get a folder select window to show up". Well, that all works great, using the Windows API Code Pack-Shell package. However, now I want to get the actual folder that is selected. I didn't notice them mentioning this anywhere.
I tried to do string folderLocation = Convert.ToString(dialog); (dialog is the variable for opening the folder window), but that only gave me like the property of the variable. I also tried this: CommonFileDialogResult result = dialog.ShowDialog();
string folderLocation = Convert.ToString(result);
But that just gave me "Ok" - which I take it is the result of it, instead of the actual folder.

The result of ShowDialog just indicates wether the user clicked OK, cancel, or just closed the window.
CommonOpenFileDialog can be used for both files and folders, so it's a bit surprising when used as a folder picker, but the path is stored in FileName.
var dlg = new CommonOpenFileDialog();
dlg.IsFolderPicker = true;
if(dlg.ShowDialog() == CommonFileDialogResult.Ok) {
Console.WriteLine(dlg.FileName);
}

If I understood correctly, you want to get Folder for a selected file? If that's the case, you can take FileInfo for that file, and extract folfer from it. Like this:
System.IO.FileInfo fInfo = new System.IO.FileInfo(oFD1.FileName);
MessageBox.Show(fInfo.DirectoryName);
PS. oFD1 is OpenFileDialog

Select both files and folders using OpenFileDialog

I have researched a lot to find a suitable answer to this problem, but I am failing .
I can see multiple questions asked here and on other forums also , but no clear answer that brings a clear solution .
I want OpenFileDialog to select file/files for me as well as allow me to select folders also. eg. a. either Multiple files OR multiple folders (- most Prior)
b. combination of Files and Folders (-less Prior)
I figured our similar question here ( so please don't mark it as duplicate )
Question 1 [Answer links are broken]
Question 2 [Question isn't completely asking what my requirements are.]
Please guide me through some solution . I am a novice and a learner.
Any help or pointers would be very helpful .
Thanks.

You can't select folder with OpenFileDialog as well as you can't select files with FolderBrowserDialog. But there is an open source control for .net which allows you to select both files and folders you can check it here : OpenFileOrFolderDialog

var dialog = new OpenFileDialog();
dialog.ValidateNames = false;
dialog.CheckFileExists = false;
dialog.CheckPathExists = true;
dialog.FileName = "Must set default";
dialog.ShowDialog() // will allow both files and folders to be selected
Quite hack-ey.
Source

OpenFileDialog is used to open a file not folder
To allow selection of multiple files set Multiselect property to true.
For selecting Folder it's mentioned in the docs
If you want to give the user the ability to select a folder instead of a file, use FolderBrowserDialog.

You can create selctor "files or directories" and open standart OpenFileDialog or FolderBrowserDialog depending on user selection. Or you can create(or find) your custom file manager with options for selecting folders and files together.

Where are paths previously used in the program stored (e.g. FileDialog paths)?

According to this msdn article one of the sources for InitialDirectory property used in FileDialog is:
A path that was previously used in the program, perhaps retained from the last directory or file operation.
...
So if you selected your first file from folder x, the next time you try to select a file it will open up the FileDialog with with folder x selected (saving you having to navigate there).
Playing around with notepad this seems to carry across opening a file, saving a file, opening a file and even when printing with "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" which brings up it's own dialog.
So my question is where is this value stored between dialogs? I would like to be able to see what it is and potentially change it? The specific area i would like to change it is in the "Microsoft XPS Document Writer" printer which brings up it's own dialog. So it's not as simple as just setting the initalDirectory Value.

It's stored in the registry, somewhere in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\ (LastVisitedPidlMRU).

You should take a look at this link:
MRU locations are what you are looking at!
Here's a way for accessing it:
var openFileDialog1 = new OpenFileDialog();
string path = openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory;
// you can change path if you want
openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory = path;
// after you are donw you can display you dialog
if (openFileDialog1.ShowDialog() == DialogResult.OK)
{
// do something
}
Another way is to use Directory.SetCurrentDirectory method which sets the application's current working directory
And from Microsoft website, it is stored at this location in the registry:
//The MRU lists for Windows Explorer-style dialog boxes are stored by file type for each user in the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ComDlg32\OpenSaveMRU
hope this helps

Is it possible to make a FolderBrowserDialog's default path show up in a library instead of the actual disk?

I know that if I set SelectedPath before I show the dialog I can get it to have a folder open by default when the dialog opens. However, the folder I want to use is very far down the list alphabetically. I have that same folder as one of my Libraries in Windows and it shows up at the of the listing, is there any way to have it default to the library version of the folder instead of the hard drive version of the folder?
Another potential solution would be if it did still use the drive version but it automatically scrolled the window down to where it was selected. Is there any way to do either of these solutions?
How it currently shows up
How I would like it to show up

Set your root folder and selected path as such and it will auto-scroll there for you on the dialog opening:
FolderBrowserDialog dlg = new FolderBrowserDialog();
dlg.RootFolder = Environment.SpecialFolder.MyComputer;
dlg.SelectedPath = #"E:\Vetcentric";
dlg.ShowDialog();
The problem you run into is that if you watch the property assignments after selecting a folder located in the libraries hierarchy, it will still assign it to the genereic path that you would get via going through my computer.

Use a Reset() call. This will make it auto-scroll.
string prevpath = folderBrowserDialog1.SelectedPath;
folderBrowserDialog1.Reset();
folderBrowserDialog1.SelectedPath = bc.myWorkingDir;
folderBrowserDialog1.ShowNewFolderButton = true;
DialogResult dr = folderBrowserDialog1.ShowDialog();
if (dr == DialogResult.OK || dr == DialogResult.Yes)
{
bc.myWorkingDir = folderBrowserDialog1.SelectedPath;
}
folderBrowserDialog1.SelectedPath = prevpath;

Just set the path Libraries\VetCentric...
before you open should do it I think.

The easiest way would probably be to put shortcuts to the folders you want into your starting folder. Then, just double click on the shortcut and it will take you to your folder.
Otherwise you will need to use the Shell Library API
See: Using Libraries in your Program

Use a ShellFile object using Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft

Windows API Code Pack for Microsoft can be downloaded from here. That is a really nice library and it has great examples. For example if I open the solution WindowsAPICodePack10 that comes in the zip from downloading the code pack (it only contains the libraries I added a win forms and wpf application)
then I am able to use the library very easily for example in my wpf application I can drag:
ExplorerBrowser user control (note I have to add references to the libraries that came with the solution)
and then with a button I can populate that control with this lines of code:
// Create a new CommonOpenFileDialog to allow users to select a folder/library
CommonOpenFileDialog cfd = new CommonOpenFileDialog();
// Set options to allow libraries and non filesystem items to be selected
cfd.IsFolderPicker = true;
cfd.AllowNonFileSystemItems = true;
// Show the dialog
CommonFileDialogResult result = cfd.ShowDialog();
// if the user didn't cancel
if (result == CommonFileDialogResult.Ok)
{
// Update the location on the ExplorerBrowser
ShellObject resultItem = cfd.FileAsShellObject;
explorerBrowser1.NavigationTarget = resultItem;
//explorerBrowser1.Navigate(resultItem);
}
and after that I am able to have something like:
That is amazing but I don't understand Microsoft. If they give you those libraries they should make it easy to customize that user control. the reason why I downloaded those libraries is because I need to place files from a specific directory on a stackpanel and be able to have the same functionality that you get with files on explorer (able to drag files, get context menu when right clicking file, dropping files to that container etc)
anyways I don't need all that functionality. from studing the library I think that user control contains a ShellContainer object and it's childern are ShellFiles maybe.
So from this library I will like to create a ShellFile object and place it in a StackPanel. after tedious studing of the library I finally found out how to instantiate an object from shellFile (ShellFile class is abstract) :
string filename = #"C:\Program Files (x86)\FileZilla FTP Client\filezilla.exe"; \\random file
ShellFile shellFile = ShellFile.FromFilePath(filename);
now it will be nice if I could place that file in a container. I am not able to instantiate a ShellConteiner object becaue it is abstract too. so how Will I bee able to place that shell file on a canvas for example?
or maybe I could extract the properties that I need and create a user control that will represent a shellFile. I know how to get the thumbnail I can do something like:
string filename = #"C:\Program Files (x86)\FileZilla FTP Client\filezilla.exe";
ShellFile shellFile = ShellFile.FromFilePath(filename);
System.Drawing.Bitmap btm = shellFile.Thumbnail.ExtraLargeBitmap;