How to list files in a directory using the Windows API?

HANDLE hFind = FindFirstFile("C:\\semester2", &data);       // DIRECTORY

You got the directory because that's what you asked for. If you want the files, ask for them:

HANDLE hFind = FindFirstFile("C:\\semester2\\*", &data);  // FILES

(You can instead use *.* if you prefer, but apparently this only works because of a backwards compatibility hack so should probably be avoided. See comments and RbMm's answer.)

Let me take some notes about "*.*" vs "*". These filers are not equal.

2 different files can exist in our folder: somefile and somefile..

If we used the low level api ZwQueryDirectoryFile with "*.*" as a search expression (this is the 10th parameter - FileName [in, optional] ) - we would get somefile. only. But if we used "*" we'd get both files - somefile and somefile.

If we try FindFirstFile("C:\\semester2\\*.*", &data); we can note than both files somefile and somefile. are returned. So here "*.*" vs "*" have the same effect - no difference in usage.

Why does this happen? Because inside FindFirstFileEx in kernelbase (kernel32 ) do special check for "*.*" mask and if it true - replace to "" (An empty name which have the same effect as "*" ).

I think this is done to fix a very common error when users pass "*.*" instead of the correct "*" and for backward compatability with legacy code.

. and .. aren't actually part of the directory as it is stored on disk, but are added by the Win32 API.

This is not true.

• for FAT-style file system this is really stored on FAT directory as 2 first entry.
• in NTFS there are no such entries, but NTFS.sys artificially add this 2 entries if they in mask.

So this is done not at Win32 API level, but in kernel - on driver level.

In conclusion, "*.*" will work correct with Win32 API how minimum now - but the correct and clean way is to use "*" here.
"*.*" will be mistake with ZwQueryDirectoryFile api.