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If you changed the interface section (bad idea, really) that means that every RTL and VCL unit using system.sysutils needs to be recompiled in addition to your own units and the resulting dcus need to be put in a folder where they replace the dcus that come with the Delphi installation. And remember that said installation has different dcus for debug and release and different platforms, something D7 did not have. Best reevaluate the original cause for this change in D7 and see wether you can avoid it in D11 completely.

...depending on your definition of "smarter"

There's no difference between Delphi 7 and 11 with regard to modifying sysutils that I can think of. You have most likely not specified the correct project search path. Where have you placed the modified sysutils.pas ?

I presume you copied this altered version to your projects path...? And it is missing from the other project? Project requirements that require a change to a file which might in turn get changed with every patch/update of the IDE are at least worthy of discussion.

I did that a few days ago out of curiosity. I did it a function at a time so it needs work to make it workable. procedure FindDesktopFolderView(riid: TGUID; var ppv: Pointer); var spShellWindows: IShellWindows; vtLoc: OleVariant; vtEmpty: OleVariant; lhwnd: LongInt; spdisp: IDispatch; spBrowser: IShellBrowser; spView: IShellView; begin spShellWindows := CoShellWindows.Create; vtLoc := CSIDL_DESKTOP; vtEmpty := VarEmpty; spShellWindows.FindWindowSW(vtLoc, vtEmpty, SWC_DESKTOP, lhwnd, SWFO_NEEDDISPATCH, spdisp); spBrowser := (spdisp as IServiceProvider).QueryService(SID_STopLevelBrowser, IShellBrowser) as IShellBrowser; spBrowser.QueryActiveShellView(spView); spView.QueryInterface(riid, ppv); end; ----------------- program DesktopFolderView; {$APPTYPE CONSOLE} {$R *.res} uses System.SysUtils, ActiveX, ComObj, ShlObj, ShellAPI; // CCoInitialize incorporated by reference function wmain(argc: Integer; argv: PWideChar): Integer; var init: IUnknown; // Equivalent to CCoInitialize spView: IFolderView; spFolder: IShellFolder; spEnum: IEnumIDList; spidl: PItemIDList; str: TStrRet; spszName: PWideChar; pt: TPoint; begin init := CreateComObject(CLSID_CoInitialize); FindDesktopFolderView(IID_IFolderView, spView); spView.GetFolder(IID_IShellFolder, spFolder); spView.Items(SVGIO_ALLVIEW, IID_IEnumIDList, spEnum); while spEnum.Next(1, spidl, nil) = S_OK do begin spFolder.GetDisplayNameOf(spidl, SHGDN_NORMAL, str); StrRetToStr(@str, spidl, spszName); spView.GetItemPosition(spidl, pt); Writeln(Format('At %4d,%4d is %s', [pt.x, pt.y, WideString(spszName)])); CoTaskMemFree(spidl); end; Result := 0; end; begin try CoInitialize(nil); wmain(ParamCount, PWideChar(ParamStr(0))); CoUninitialize; except on E: Exception do Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message); end; end. --------------------------- program DesktopFolderRandomPosition; {$APPTYPE CONSOLE} uses System.SysUtils, ActiveX, ComObj, ShlObj, ShellAPI, Windows; function wmain(argc: Integer; argv: PWideChar): Integer; var init: IUnknown; // Equivalent to CCoInitialize spView: IFolderView; spEnum: IEnumIDList; spidl: PItemIDList; pt: TPoint; apidl: array[0..0] of PItemIDList; begin init := CreateComObject(CLSID_CoInitialize); FindDesktopFolderView(IID_IFolderView, spView); spView.Items(SVGIO_ALLVIEW, IID_IEnumIDList, spEnum); while spEnum.Next(1, spidl, nil) = S_OK do begin spView.GetItemPosition(spidl, pt); pt.x := pt.x + (Random(5) - 2); pt.y := pt.y + (Random(5) - 2); apidl[0] := spidl; spView.SelectAndPositionItems(1, @apidl[0], @pt, SVSI_POSITIONITEM); CoTaskMemFree(spidl); end; Result := 0; end; begin try CoInitialize(nil); Randomize; // Initialize random number generator wmain(ParamCount, PWideChar(ParamStr(0))); CoUninitialize; except on E: Exception do Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message); end; end. ------------------------------------ procedure SavePositions(pView: IFolderView; pszFile: PWideChar); var spStream: IStream; spEnum: IEnumIDList; spidl: PItemIDList; pt: TPoint; begin SHCreateStreamOnFileEx(pszFile, STGM_CREATE or STGM_WRITE, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, True, nil, spStream); pView.Items(SVGIO_ALLVIEW, IID_IEnumIDList, spEnum); while spEnum.Next(1, spidl, nil) = S_OK do begin WritePidlToStream(spStream, spidl); // Custom function to write PIDL to stream pView.GetItemPosition(spidl, pt); WritePointToStream(spStream, pt); // Custom function to write POINT to stream ILFree(spidl); // Free the PIDL end; end; ----------------------------------- procedure RestorePositions(pView: IFolderView; pszFile: PWideChar); var spStream: IStream; spidl: PItemIDList; pt: TPoint; apidl: array[0..0] of PItemIDList; begin // Create a file stream SHCreateStreamOnFileEx(pszFile, STGM_READ, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, False, nil, spStream); // Read PIDLs and their positions from the stream and restore them while Succeeded(IStream_ReadPidl(spStream, spidl)) and Succeeded(spStream.Read(@pt, SizeOf(pt), nil)) do begin apidl[0] := spidl; pView.SelectAndPositionItems(1, @apidl[0], @pt, SVSI_POSITIONITEM); CoTaskMemFree(spidl); // Free the PIDL end; end; // Note: IStream_ReadPidl is a placeholder for the actual function you would use to read a PIDL from a stream. // You will need to implement this functionality in Delphi, as it is not provided by Delphi's standard libraries.

The C++ standard file library really sucks what it comes to error reporting. I would suggest using TFileStream or even CreateFile() directly to get better details about what the actual failure is. On a side note: kbhit() is a really old-school Borland function, it is not standard in either C or C++. Consider using C++'s standard std::cin.get() method instead. Try this: #include <iostream> #include <memory> #include <System.SysUtils.hpp> #include <System.Classes.hpp> int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) { try { auto ifs = std::make_unique<TFileStream>(_D("C:\\Junk\\testfile.txt"), fmOpenRead); std::cout << "Opened OK\n"; } catch (const Sysutils::Exception &e) { std::wcout << L"Can't open input file. Error: " << e.Message.c_str() << "\n"; std::cin.get(); return 1; } std::cin.get(); return 0; } Or: #include <iostream> #include <windows.h> int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[]) { HANDLE hFile = CreateFileW(L"C:\\Junk\\testfile.txt", GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, nullptr, OPEN_EXISTING, 0, nullptr); if (hFile == INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) { DWORD dwError = GetLastError(); cout << "Can't open input file. Error: " << dwError << "\n"; std::cin.get(); return 1; } std::cout << "Opened OK\n"; CloseHandle(hFile); std::cin.get(); return 0; }

That code works for me fine on 12.1, I guess the basic question is do you have a file the that input stream can load. If it doesnt exist it will fail

Raymond Chen's blog article on Manipulating the positions of desktop icons includes code "to enumerate all the desktop icons and print their names and locations."

The Path was right. The discussion was not about our project. It's about the working of sysutils.pas from Delphi 7 to Delphi 11.