I have created a windows application setup program, it needs to have a text file in the application folder. The file is also included while creating the setup.
Once the setup successfully completes and my program tries to modify the file based on user input, its simple throwing an exception.
I am using Windows 7 Home Premium OS.
Any suggestion/help will be great to overcome this issue.
This is normal on a Vista or Win7 machine. Or a properly secured XP machine for that matter. The normal install location for programs, like c:\program files\your company\your app, is read only for most users. UAC is a counter-measure to malware messing with programs.
You'll need to store the text file into a writable location, the AppData folder. In the Setup project, right-click "File system on target machine" and select User's Application Data Folder. Find that file back at runtime through Environment.GetFolderPath, passing Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData. Or use "User's Personal Data Folder" if the user should be able to find it back easily through the Documents folder.
What exception is being thrown? It could be a UAC issue.
Related
My WPF application writes an XML file to a folder within the CommonApplicationData folder on a Windows 7/64 machine. This works fine from Visual Studio 2010. When running from the .EXE file, I get a System.UnauthorizedAccessException when writing the file.
Is this a problem with my initial setup of the folder? Or is this related to the permissions of the executable file itself? Not quite sure how to handle this one??
Paul
I think that it is a problem with permissions to the folder.
Probably Visual Studio runs your application as an administrator and the .EXE file is executed as a normal user.
Perhaps you want to re-evaluate storing that data (XML) in that location all the time. Limited users won't be able to write to it. Sure, you can force admin privs but your users may not always have that option (and it's kinda a hack anyway).
The question below seems to outline a work-around depending on the user's priv level.
writing files to Common Application Data folder denied
Right click on the *.exe file and "Run as administrator".
I have an Application in WinForms,
I have created SetupDevelopment project and then install an application using Setup.exe file
i have added MSAcceess db file into application folder file,
when i install an application the database file gets readonly. how can i make file writtable after installation?
I found some solution on internet and found that when i tried to install application in different path other than "C:\ProgramFile\" and make application available to all user,it solves my Problem, but i want to install an application only in "C:\ProgramFile\" and want to available to only "Current user"
how can i achieve my Problem ?
In modern Windows Operating System the folders 'Program Files' or 'Program Files (x86)' are read only for the common users. This choice has been done for security reasons and you cannot easily bypass this rule. The reccomended folders, to use just for the current user, are C:\users\username\AppData\Roaming or C:\users\username\AppData\Local identified by the Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData or Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData. To this base folders add another subfolder identifying your application or company and install your database there.
If you want your database available to all users of the current PC, you could install it in the Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData that resolves to C:\programdata. (Again, adding a subfolder specific for your application or company)
Again, don't try to force the operating system to work against its rules. You will find yourself in trouble very often.
We have an application that was built for the Windows Mobile and Windows platforms, using Visual Studio 2005. We have both versions of this application developed using a single code base to try and reduce code duplication. One of the issues that we encountered with this was that the ConfigurationManager was not available for the Windows Mobile platform. We worked around this by building our own ConfigurationManager that reads and writes settings to the "Application.exe.config" file in the Program Files folder. So both our Windows version and our Windows Mobile version use this same custom ConfigurationManager.
This worked fine on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, but on Windows 7 we have encountered a problem and I don't know how to work around it. When we make a change to the config file (which we can only do by copying it to another folder, changing it and then copying it back... otherwise we get an "access denied" message when we try to save our changes directly in the Program Files folder), the change that we make is only reflected if we run the application as Administrator. If we run the application as a normal user, the default setting from the install are always shown. We suspect that this is a Windows 7 security-related issue, but can someone explain why this is happening? How can we change the settings so that they are also applied when the application is run as an ordinary user?
Windows 7 requires elevated privileges for several folders, including program files. It's not good practice to try to work around this.
Since you are using a custom solution, one option is placing your configuration file under %APPDATA%\yourproduct, which can be reached with
var appDataFolder = Path.Combine(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData, product);
A better solution is probably to use different configuration managers for different platforms, though. Couldn't some kind of abstract factory be applied?
I suspect your app tried to write to the config file at least once running non elevated and without a manifest. This made a "compatibility files" folder for your config file. When you run non elevated it looks there now. (See http://www.gregcons.com/KateBlog/FindingFilesYoureSureYouWrote.aspx for screenshots of how you can confirm this.)
If all you want is for a human, or some utility program you wrote that can run elevated, to be able to edit the config file, you can leave it where it is and put a manifest on your app to prevent virtualization. See http://www.gregcons.com/KateBlog/AddingAManifestToAVistaApplication.aspx for a sample manifest. That blog post goes on to tell you how to embed the manifest, but you don't need to, an external manifest will work. If your app is foo.exe, name the manifest foo.exe.manifest and put it in the same folder. This will prevent virtualization and cause the app to read the "real" config file.
If changing the config file will be a normal everyday occurrence, don't write the file under Program Files. AppData is a good choice.
I am using inno setup to make a installation package for my application, and my application is written by C# + .Net 2.0 + VSTS 2008. Inno setup => http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php and I install my application under Program Files/Foo folder (Foo is my application name). My application is targeting to Windows Vista.
The issue I found is my program cannot write to the folder Program Files/Foo. And I need the permission of write to this folder in order to save some configuration files. The strange thing I notice is the folder Program Files/Foo is marked as readonly and I have checked all folders under Program Files are marked with read only, such as Office.
My questions are,
Why all folders are marked as read only under Program Files? It means we should not write to individual application folders under Program Files? If not, where should we write information to disk like user last selected configuration information of an individual application?
If we could write to individual application folders under Program Files, what is the solution? I do not want my application to Run As administrator to solve this issue, and if there are solution to write to this folder, I want to require minimal permission if possible.
You should write user specific config data to the Application Data folder for the current user, using the special folders enum and the Enivronment.GetFolderPath.
Best Practice is to not store config data in the Program Files folder. Instead, store your application's data in %AppData%\YourApplicationName. Depending on whether you want to store your config data per-user or in a shared common folder, use one of the following enums to get the folder path:
string userAppData = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
string commonAppData = Envrionment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData);
By default, Vista users do not run programs as Administrators and hence those programs have only read access to the folders under "Program Files". Users can change this behavior by disabling UAC and you could ask your users to do that, but in an office setting users might not have that option. That's why you use AppData instead -- applications can always read and write data to the AppData folder.
Information on UAC can be found at Microsoft's site. Although this page is fairly long, it's a starting point for understanding UAC:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530410.aspx
A common solution would be to install configuration files to the Application Data folder i.e. like follows:
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData)
Similar to: Request Windows Vista UAC elevation if path is protected?
I have a .NET Client Application installed in c:\Program Files (Windows Vista). This application should update itself, but it doesn't because of permission issues. The auto-updater should simply replace a couple of assemblies, but they are all located under c:\Program File and the application throws the following exception:
System.UnauthorizedAccessException:
Access to the path 'C:\Program
Files...' is denied.
I have no control on where the application could be installed and the permission. Is there any workaround for this? Is it possible to request the Administrator rights for a couple of seconds? Is it possible to pop a UAC window? I am pretty sure that there a workaround... Otherwise, how Firefox would be able to update itself?
Thanks in advance for the help and ideas!
Could you use a Click Once deployment method? We use this for an internal application and users have no problems with permissions when we publish a new version. They are prompted to install the update when they launch the app (if a new version exists) and it installs without a hitch.
You can't elevate a process's permissions halfway through, but you can start up another separate process with higher permissions that can do the work for you.
Get your main application to put all the files / installation details into a low-permission temporary location. When you're ready, start up a smaller application whose only job is to copy over those files to the Program Files directory (and maybe restart your main application with the new updates). Mark that application as requiring the needed permission to copy to the Program Files directory or write to the registry (or whatever else is needed).