What Is a Root Folder or Root Directory?

Definition & examples of root folders and root directories

The root folder, also called the root directory or sometimes just the root, of any partition or folder is the «highest» directory in the hierarchy. You can also think of it in general as the start or beginning of a particular folder structure.

The root directory contains all other folders in the drive or folder, and can, of course, also contain files. You can visualize this with an upside-down tree where the roots (the root folder) are at the top and the branches (subfolders) fall below; the root is what holds together all of its lower items.

For example, the root directory of the main partition on your computer is probably C:\. The root folder of your DVD or CD drive might be D:\. The root of the Windows Registry is where hives like HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT are stored.

ROOT is also an acronym for ROOT’s Object Oriented Technologies, but it has nothing to do with root folders.

Examples of Root Folders

The term root may also be relative to whatever location you’re talking about. For example, a program that installs to C:\Programs\Example uses that particular folder as its root, with potentially a series of subfolders beneath it.

This same thing applies to any other folder. Do you need to go to the root of the user folder for User1 in Windows? That’s the C:\Users\Name1\ folder. This, of course, changes depending on what user you’re talking about—the root folder of User2 would be C:\Users\User2\.

Accessing a Root Folder

A quick way to get to the root folder of the hard drive when you’re in a Windows Command Prompt is to execute the change directory—cd—command like this:

After executing, you’ll immediately be moved from the current working directory all the way up to the root folder. So, for example, if you’re in the C:\Windows\System32 folder and then enter the cd command with the backslash (as shown above), you’ll immediately be moved from where you’re at to C:\.

Similarly, executing the cd command like this:

. will move the directory up one position, which is helpful if you need to get to the root of a folder but not the root of the entire drive. For example, executing cd .. while in the C:\Users\User1\Downloads\ folder changes the current directory to C:\Users\User1\. Doing it again takes you to C:\Users\, and so on.

Below is an example where we start in a folder called Germany on the C:\ drive. As you can see, executing that same command in Command Prompt moves the working directory to the folder just before/above it, all the way to the root of the hard drive.

You may try to access a root folder only to find that you can’t see it when you’re browsing through Explorer. This is because some folders are hidden in Windows by default. See our article How Do I Show Hidden Files and Folders in Windows? if you need help unhiding them.

More About Root Folders & Directories

The term web root folder may sometimes be used to describe the directory that holds all of the files that make up a website. The same concept applies here as on your local computer—the files and folders in this root folder contain the main web page files, such as HTML files, that should be displayed when someone accesses the main URL of the website.

The term root used here shouldn’t be confused with the /root folder found on some Unix operating systems, where it’s instead of the home directory of a specific user account (which is sometimes called the root account). In a sense, though, since it’s the main folder for that specific user, you could refer to it as the root folder.

In some operating systems, files can be stored in the root directory, like the C:/ drive in Windows, but some OSs don’t support that.

The term root directory is used in the VMS operating system to define where all the user’s files are stored.

What is a root directory?

I know what a root directory is, of course, but I am finding it very difficult to explain to people what it is. I wrote a Nintendo DS application that requires a folder to be copied to the root directory of your memory card, and I often get e-mails from people who copied it to the wrong place and don’t understand what the root directory is. I don’t think they realize that the root directory can be thought of as a directory or «folder».

What is the best way to explain this to these people?

6 Answers 6

Maybe you could tell them to put it on the memory card itself, not in any folder.

Call it the «top-level» folder.

For them, the root directory is the first folder they see when the double click the memory card icon.

What about using a metaphore:

You can see the folders structure as a tree. Each folder is a branch with subbranches and leaves (the files). Each branch is connected to an other (bigger branch) except one. The root.

Could you create a simple extractor/installer that will do it all for them?, could save a lot of hassle for the non-tech people.

Make them visualize it as one of those Russian dolls where the larger one holds all the remaining dolls and one by one they decrease in size.Or much like a family tree. The root directory is adam. as in adam and eve and the rest are the offspring branching outwards from Adam the highest person on the tree.

Not the answer you’re looking for? Browse other questions tagged filesystems or ask your own question.

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root folder equivalent in windows

Is C drive treated as the root folder in windows when one says \folder1\folder2\ in linux and windows C:\folder1\folder2.

10 Answers 10

In Windows it’s relative to what drive your current working directory is at the time. If your current directory is in the C drive then C:\ would be the root. If the current directory is the D drive then D:\ would be the root. There is no absolute root.

At the filesystem level the Win32 API has no root folder, but as others have pointed out the Shell API does, ie. the Desktop. The Shell namespace is browsed with the (graphical) shell, which happens to be Explorer.exe.

At a much lower level, the Windows kernel also has a root folder, and the registry and filesystem are subfolders of it. This is relevant if you are writing a device driver. The Object Manager namespace can be browsed with a tool called WinObj.

If you’re running Windows CE then \ is the root directory. This resembles Unix’s / root directory. This is the only kind of Windows where you can get a simple answer to your question.

If you’re running Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 then the closest equivalent is the partition containing files NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, BOOT.INI, and BOOTFONT.BIN. The BIOS and MBR find this partition by finding which drive to start booting, scanning the MBR, and looking for the active partition. Microsoft calls this the system partition. I’m not completely sure how a program can find which partition this was. Anyway, when you find which drive letter this is, say letter L, then you could say that L:\ is the root directory. 99% of the time this will be drive letter C:.

Also if you’re running Windows NT/2000/XP/2003 then you also have a partition which contains the Windows system files, such as directory \Windows or others. Microsoft calls this the boot partition. You can get the drive letter from the symbol %SystemDrive% as someone else said. If this is drive letter Q then you can say that Q:\ is the root of the system drive.

If you’re running Vista then things are more complicated. If you installed by booting the DVD, then the boot partition (containing the system files) is C: and your system partition (containing the boot files) is D:, unless they’re the same partition and then the partition is C:. But if you installed by having Windows running already, inserting the DVD and starting the installer under that Windows installation, then the drive letters could be almost anything.

In Windows 95/98/ME the BIOS and MBR would look for files IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM, and some others, in the active partition. This would usually get drive letter C: so the root partition would be C:. As always, the Windows system files could be installed in directory \Windows or others on any partition.

Some people talk about a desktop. Well sure, each logged in user has a desktop. This is somewhat like each Unix user’s home directory. It sure isn’t a root directory.

Addendum: In the second-to-last paragraph, about Windows 95/98/ME, I typed «so the root partition would be C:.» That is, letter C, a colon, a backslash, and then a period for the end of the sentence (not part of the directory name). When viewing the page, the backslash isn’t showing. But when editing this answer to add this addendum, the backslash is there exactly as it should be, exactly as I typed it.

What is a Root Directory?

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A root directory is the top-most directory in computer file systems. It sometimes is referred to as the parent directory or the home directory. In can contain many other directories or sub-directories.

The root directory is the top-most directory in a computer file system.

The term «home directory» is not a completely accurate reference to the root directory when speaking of Unix or Unix-like computer file systems such as the numerous distributions or flavors of the Linux operating system. There are some Linux distributions that were developed to be used primarily by a single user who works as the root or master user at all times. Puppy Linux is an example of such a system. Most distributions, however, were developed for a production environment of multiple users, each having his or her own home directory. Individual home directories are not root directories in the same sense as the top-most directory in hierarchical computer file systems.

The root directory under the Microsoft (MS) Windows® operating system differs from that of a Linux distribution. Every partition is assigned a letter of the alphabet under MS Windows. For example, the local disk where the operating system is installed would be designated as C:\ which is called the root directory for that specific partition. Optical drives such as compact disc (CD) and digital versatile disk (DVD) drives typically are designated as D:\ or E:\. These are the root directories for those specific drives. Each one is a parent directory that can hold any number of sub-directories, so it can be said that there is more than one root directory under Windows.

Unix and Unix-based operating systems such as the various distributions of Linux employ a hierarchical file system in which the top-most directory is designated by a simple backslash; it is the only true top-most directory. All files and sub-directories are relative to the root directory regardless of the operating system in use. Sometimes the terms «working directory,» «relative,» and «absolute path» are used when specifying the exact location of a particular file. The relative path of a file is actually relative to another location; for example, a file in a sub-directory is relative to the parent directory in which that sub-directory sits. When pointing to files in a sub-directory, it usually is sufficient to indicate the relative path, not the absolute one.

There are times when the absolute path of a file needs to be indicated, which requires knowing what the root directory is. The working directory is a term often employed to indicate the directory or exact location in which a user is currently working. Directories can be thought of as electronic manila folders in which various files are kept, but unlike physical manila folders in which other folders are seldom placed, an electronic root directory can hold multiple folders known as sub-directories.

What is the windows root directory

Root may refer to any of the following:

1. Alternatively referred to as an admin, administrator, and gatekeeper, root is a superuser account on a computer or network and has complete control. See our Administrator definition for a full explanation.

2. The root or root directory is the highest level in a directory hierarchy and includes all other directories under it. For example, in MS-DOS, the primary hard drive’s root or root directory would be the C:\ directory. When working on a web page, the root directory will be your home directory or your public_html directory. On a UNIX system, the root directory is designated as «/» (a single forward slash, without the quotes).

How to get back to the root directory

To get back to the root directory, use either of the commands below, depending on what command line you are using.

MS-DOS and Windows command line users

In the Microsoft Recovery Console, you can set the current directory to the system root with the systemroot command.

Linux, Terminal, and Unix

Related pages

3. With Android devices, root refers to unlocking the Android device to allow more access to the core software that was blocked by the manufacturer of the device.

4. In an arithmetic sense, root may be used to describe exponentiating a base number with a fraction. For example, 4 1/2 is the same as taking the square root of four, which is two because 2×2=4. Similarly, 27 1/3 is the same as taking the third root of 27, which is three because 3x3x3=27.

5. With linguistics, root is a word without a prefix or suffix. For example, with the words » portal, portable, and transport» the word «port» is the root word. The roots of a word help you determine the meaning of new word you may have never encountered.

6. Root is an ability, effect, or spell in computer games that locks a target in place. For example, in the game World of Warcraft, the Mage class has a spell called frost nova that freezes an enemy in place for a few seconds. (It’s super OP.)