What is the correct way to check if a path is an UNC path or a local path?

Question

The easiest way to check if a path is an UNC path is of course to check if the first character in the full path is a letter or backslash. Is this a good solution or could th

Answer 1

The most accurate approach is going to be using some interop code from the shlwapi.dll

[DllImport("shlwapi.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
[ResourceExposure(ResourceScope.None)]
[return: MarshalAsAttribute(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
internal static extern bool PathIsUNC([MarshalAsAttribute(UnmanagedType.LPWStr), In] string pszPath);

You would then call it like this:

    /// 

    /// Determines if the string is a valid Universal Naming Convention (UNC)
    /// for a server and share path.
    /// 
    /// The path to be tested.
    ///  if the path is a valid UNC path; 
    /// otherwise, .
    public static bool IsUncPath(string path)
    {
        return PathIsUNC(path);
    }

@JaredPar has the best answer using purely managed code.