Retrieves the path of the directory designated for temporary files, based on the privileges of the calling process.
SyntaxDWORD GetTempPath2A(
[in] DWORD BufferLength,
[out] LPSTR Buffer
);
[in] BufferLength
The size of the string buffer identified by lpBuffer, in TCHARs.
[out] Buffer
A pointer to a string buffer that receives the null-terminated string specifying the temporary file path. The returned string ends with a backslash, for example, "C:\TEMP\".
Return valueIf the function succeeds, the return value is the length, in TCHARs, of the string copied to lpBuffer, not including the terminating null character. If the return value is greater than nBufferLength, the return value is the length, in TCHARs, of the buffer required to hold the path.
If the function fails, the return value is zero. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.
The maximum possible return value is MAX_PATH+1 (261).
When calling this function from a process running as SYSTEM it will return the path C:\Windows\SystemTemp, which is inaccessible to non-SYSTEM processes. For non-SYSTEM processes, GetTempPath2 will behave the same as GetTempPath.
For system processes, the GetTempPath2 function checks for the existence of the environment variable SystemTemp. If this environment variable is set, it will use the value of the environment variable as the path instead of the default system provided path on the C: drive.
Note
The reason GetTempPath2 exists and defaults to returning C:\Windows\SystemTemp is because that directory is ACL'd with the correct permissions to prevent common path redirection issues. For security reasons, only set the SystemTemp environment variable to a directory with permissions that only allow for a SYSTEM process/administrator to access it.
For non-system processes, the GetTempPath2 function checks for the existence of environment variables in the following order and uses the first path found:
Note that the function does not verify that the path exists, nor does it test to see if the current process has any kind of access rights to the path. The GetTempPath2 function returns the properly formatted string that specifies the fully qualified path based on the environment variable search order as previously specified. The application should verify the existence of the path and adequate access rights to the path prior to any use for file I/O operations.
Symbolic link behavior: If the path points to a symbolic link, the temp path name maintains any symbolic links.
In Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012, this function is supported by the following technologies:
Technology Supported Server Message Block (SMB) 3.0 protocol Yes SMB 3.0 Transparent Failover (TFO) Yes SMB 3.0 with Scale-out File Shares (SO) Yes Cluster Shared Volume File System (CsvFS) Yes Resilient File System (ReFS) YesNote
When Windows updates released in March 2025 and later are installed, this API will be supported on Windows 10, version 1607 (Build 14393.7876) and later and Windows Server 2016 Build 14393.7876 and later versions. See KB5053594 for more information.
ExamplesFor an example, see Creating and Using a Temporary File.
Note
The fileapi.h header defines GetTempPath2 as an alias that automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that is not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.
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