What is the root directory?

The root directory, also called the root directory or sometimes is simply a root, of any partition is the "highest" directory in the hierarchy. You can also consider this to be the starting point of a specific directory structure.

The root directory contains all the other folders in the drive, and of course, can also contain files. You can imagine this as an upside down tree, in which the root (root directory) is at the top and the branches (subdirectories) are below. Root is the place that holds all its lower level items.

For example, the root directory of the main partition on your computer may be C :. The root of the DVD or CD drive may be D :. The root of the Windows Registry is the place to store hives like HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.

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

Example of root directory

The term root can also relate to any location you are talking about.

For example, suppose you are working on the C: Program FilesAdobe folder for any reason. If the software you are using or a troubleshooting guide you are reading tells you to go to the root of the Adobe installation directory, then they are talking about the "main" directory containing all the relevant Adobe files. to whatever you are doing.

In this example, because C: Program Files also contains a lot of directories for other programs, the root of the Adobe folder, specifically, will be the Adobe folder . However, the root directory for all program files on your computer will be the folder C: Program Files.

This also applies to any other directory. Do you need the root access of the user directory for User1 in Windows? That is the folder C: UsersName1. Of course, this varies depending on the user you're talking about - the root directory of User2 will be C: UsersUser2.

Access the root directory

A quick way to get to the root directory of the hard drive when you are in the Windows Command Prompt is to execute the change directory (cd) command as follows:

 cd 

After executing, you will immediately be transferred from the current working directory to the root directory. So, for example, if you are in the C: WindowsSystem32 directory and then enter the cd command with a backslash (as shown above), you will immediately be moved from location to C: .

Similarly, execute the cd command like this:

 cd. 

. will move the folder to a location, very useful if you need to access the root of a directory, but not the root of the entire drive. For example, execute cd. when in the folder C: UsersUser1Downloads will change the current directory to C: UsersUser1. Re-executing the command again will take you to C: Users , etc.

Here's an example where the article starts in a folder named Germany on the C: drive. As you can see, executing the same command in the Command Prompt will move the working directory to the folder just before / above it, all to the root of the hard drive.

 C:AMYS-PHONEPicturesGermany>cd. C:AMYS-PHONEPictures>cd. C:AMYS-PHONE>cd. C:> 

Tip : You can try to access a root folder because you find that you can't see it when browsing through Explorer. This is because some directories are hidden in Windows by default. See the article: How to hide files, show hidden files, view hidden folders and file extensions on Windows 7/8/10 if you need to know how to hide them.

More information about root directory

The term web root directory can sometimes be used to describe the directory containing all the files that make up a web page. The same concept is applied here on your local computer - the files and folders in this root directory contain the main website files, such as HTML files, that will be displayed when someone accesses The main URL of the website.

The root term used here should not be confused with the / root directory found on some Unix operating systems. This is the main directory of a specific user account (sometimes called a root account). However, in a sense, since this is the main directory for that particular user, you can call it the root directory.

In some operating systems, files can be stored in the root directory, like the C: / drive in Windows, but some operating systems do not support that.

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