To enable ESL applications to support the restrictions imposed by Windows Vista, the File name supplied to read and write files into and out of regions now allows system variables. There is also an addition to the OSUTIL file "ExpandEnvironmentStrings", which takes a string that includes a system variable, and returns a string with the variable name expanded to the value of the variable.

For example: The string "%ProgramFiles%\\EslSyndetic" will typically be returned as: "C:\\Program Files\\EslSyndetic".

This facility is useful for accessing files the current user's application data directory or temporary directory.