I have a VB program that creates a temporay PDF file then opens Outlook and attaches the file. I create the file in the application path (the location that the program is running from - normally C:\Program Files\ProgamName). This works fine in XP as it appears there are no crazy permission issues. However in Windows 7, the file does not appear. There are no errors, the file does not exist in that location.
I've changed the path to the root of C:\, however this doesn't work either. I suspect it's something to do with W7 virtualisation, so the question is where can I create a file that I can then access again?
I was trying to avoid creating it on a share on a server, but it's looking like this is the only place to put it as there doesn't seem to be many places a user can write files to in Windows 7.
Surely there must be a location that users can access (without being administrators) to create files. Don't even get me started on the fun I have had with the registry in W7!!!
Thanks
Patrick
You need to create the file in the system's temp directory, which you can find by calling Path.GetTempPath().
In general, your program should only write to files in the user's Application Data (or temp) directories and only write registry keys in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. (This is true in any version of Windows)
If you follow these guidelines, you won't have any trouble in Windwos VIsta or 7.
You should never write information to places that are shared by multiple users.
Edit: While the following will work, SLaks points out it's bad practice, and the temp file won't get cleaned up.
Try %HOMEPATH% - this is the environment variable for a users documents folder, and should work no matter which version if windows you use.
In other words where you used to have:
"c:\programfiles\programname\tempFileName"
use:
"%HOMEPATH%\tempFileName"
Related
I would like to delete file (that was created by pyinstaller in C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\App\tmp )
during Uninstall (using WiX). Any idea on how to do that?
Does anybody know why pyinstaller creates that file and if I can control that?
A partial answer: That virtual store location is where Windows redirects file output when the program is not privileged enough to write to a location, and does not have an elevation-type manifest that shows it is UAC-aware. This might help:
http://sourcedaddy.com/windows-7/uac-virtualization.html
So it appears that pyinstaller assumes it is being run as administrator, but it isn't, and is writing to a location that's virtualised. Instead of trying to remove those files I'd look at that installer and how you are running it and (since it seems to require admin privilege) how to have it run with admin privilege. I assume it's old technology because an updated version would presumably include an elevation manifest saying that it requires admin privilege.
Recently I made an application that has lots of PDF files in it and I made a setup for it using Inno Setup Compiler. In the setup, I allowed people to change where they want to install the app. For opening my PDF files, I used: system.diagnostics.process.start("My pdf.pdf")
My problem is that in the code above, I put drive "C:" and when my user changed the install directory to drive "D:" the pdf's did not work and the error showed that "Cannot find the specific file". My question is that is there a way to just put the name of "computer" or "a drive" in the code above, not the specific name of the pdf, and let the computer find the file itself?
You seem to be asking for an opposite of what you actually want to achieve.
I assume you are installing files with known names. What you do not know is the directory of the files.
From your description I assume that your actual code is like:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("C:\My pdf.pdf")
But when the user chooses a different location (directory) for your application, the above code with a hard-coded absolute path fails.
If your application installs to the same directory as the PDFs, just use a relative path (in this case just a file name without any path). It makes an operating system look to the current working directory, which will typically be an application directory.
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("My pdf.pdf")
Or to make it more reliable, make it explicitly look to the application directory. For that use Application.StartupPath:
System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(
System.IO.Path.Combine(System.Windows.Forms.Application.StartupPath, "My pdf.pdf"))
See also Get program path in VB.NET?
I don't know is this site a good place to ask this question... A long time ago, my operating system was linux. On linux I made a file with name \/:*?"<>|. Then I installed windows instead of linux, but now I cannot access or delete this file. I tried to delete it using Unlocker, ProceXP, Command Prompt and many other programs, but I couldn't. Also, I tried all commands in Command Prompt which can be used for deleting undeletable files, but this file is still here. If I try to rename it, process explorer.exe crashes. Then I installed linux again and this file become accessable.
Now I have windows and another file with name \/:*?"<>|. Is it possible to access this file without installing linux? Is there a way to access place on filesystem where this file name is stored and manualy change it to any acceptable file name? If yes, can you explain which program is best for it?
Try using DeleteDoctor. I've used it under similar situations as yours with great success. You can download a copy here:
http://www.download25.com/delete-doctor-download.html
I'm trying to copy a file to System32 folder. I tried;
System.Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables("%windir%\system32")
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.System)
It didn't work. It always returns to C:/Windows . What should i do to get System32 folder ? Thanks.
Both of those work. You can verify you have the proper directory by setting a breakpoint on line 2 of your Button1_Click method and then inspecting the value of dir.
That being said, you really shouldn't be writing to the System32 folder (or really anything from the Windows folder down, with the exception of Temp). If you're trying to install an application on the end-user machine, you should be using an installer (and writing to the Program Files folder) instead.
Writing directly into the System32 folder isn't normally allowed (unless you've turned off access control and a lot of security features) as it introduces a huge security risk. You're also not guaranteed that it will even work on all systems because of different security controls that may (or may not) be in place.
This is a really odd security issue with a C# (3.0) Console application.
The application creates a folder and copies a bunch of files into that folder, it then also generates some files and saves them into the same folder. File streams are always closed. The copied files are done using File.Copy. Once the files are there, I don't seem to be able to access them again - later in the code, if I want to delete or open an existing file I get a access denied error yet I just created or copied the file there so I know I have permission!
Visual Studio 2008, Windows 7 (beta) - tried running as administrator but it didn't help. I also gave the parent folder permissions so that "Everyone" had write access and its under my logged in user documents folder.
Thanks!
update: I tried this on XP and had the same result so its not Win 7 :)
Have the files got the read-only attribute set? Trying to delete read-only files can cause an access denied exception to be thrown.
If you do all your stream declarations in a using block, you should be guaranteed they aren't causing the problem.