That's probably overkill for most situations ;-) How about just:

Win32Utils>>apiGetEnvironmentVariable: lpName with: lpBuffer with: nSize
   <apicall: ulong 'GetEnvironmentVariableA' (char* byte* ulong) module: 
'kernel32.dll'>
   ^self externalCallFailed

Win32Utils>>getEnvironmentVariable: aString
   "Win32Utils getEnvironmentVariable: 'windir'"
   | buffer size |
   size := self apiGetEnvironmentVariable: aString with: nil with: 0.
   buffer := String new: size.
   self apiGetEnvironmentVariable: aString with: buffer with: size.
   ^buffer allButLast

Cheers,
   - Andreas

John Pierce wrote:
> Hi Bret,
> 
> I know you won't like this answer, but download .NET Framework 1.1 and 
> install (probably already have it), and download and install Squeak .NET 
> Bridge on SqueakMap, then....
> 
> Run the following in a workspace:
> 
> DotNet Environment getEnvironmentVariable: #windir
> 
> Voila!
> 
> Regards,
> 
> John
> 
> On 8/19/05, *Bert Freudenberg* <bert at impara.de <mailto:bert at impara.de>> 
> wrote:
> 
>     Sure. Your question sounded like you wanted to access the root
>     directory.
> 
>     So you actually want some platform-dependent information. Well, look
>     up what you would do in another programming environment to access
>     that information. Then do the same from Squeak. If you do not know
>     how to do that from Squeak, please explain that specific problem here.
> 
>     - Bert -
> 
>     Am 19.08.2005 um 18:04 schrieb IPSistemos:
> 
>      > Hello,
>      >
>      > "FileDirectory root" does not return C:\WINDOWS as expected for the
>      > WINDOWS XP user.
>      >
>      > Friday, August 19, 2005, 6:09:13 PM, you wrote:
>      >
>      >> Am 19.08.2005 um 14:40 schrieb Valdas Bucinskas:
>      >>
>      >
>      >
>      >>> Hi,
>      >>>
>      >>> I am new to Squeak and smalltalk. I would like to know, how can I
>      >>> obtain the
>      >>> windows root directory with Squeak?
>      >>>
>      >
>      >
>      >> FileDirectory root
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> It's easy to have a complicated idea. It's very very hard to have a 
> simple idea. -- Carver Mead
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>