Not really sure of my exact question, but here is the situation:
I have an application (WinForms, C# .Net) that I am developing in Visual Studio 2012. It does a lot of things but the important bit is that it needs to read files from a certain location.
In this case, the location of the files is on a server and my machine has a mapped network drive setup for accessing the files. I can manually navigate to the files with Windows Explorer fine.
I have the following line in my code which is highlighting the issue:
System.IO.File.Exists("X:\\A Folder\\a_file.txt");
And that file does exist in that location. However this is where the problem occurs: if I build the solution and run the .exe directly from the "bin" folder (double-click). The code is fine, and it finds the file. But if I run it with visual studio then I get a "file not found" exception.
I am putting this down to the fact that Visual Studio is running in "Administrator" mode (I forget why I needed this, but I do). Now this makes sense if you consider that the "administrator" account does not have the "X:\" drive mapped. However, this has never been a problem until I upgraded to Windows 10 last week.
So my question is:
Does Visual Studio Administrator mode work differently in Windows 10? In this case, does it handle mapped network drives differently?
It's worth noting I upgraded from Windows 7, so I cannot confirm if this issue is also present in 8 and 8.1 or not.
And before anyone asks, let's just say it has to be a mapped drive. No UNC paths allowed!
So I have found a solution/workaround. Kind of seems like a wasted bounty now, so if someone has other suggestions that are better then please post and I will review them and award as applicable. Or even if somebody can make a more detailed version of my solution then I will award that one.
The issue is probably not specific to Visual Studio, but would occur with any application running with elevated privileges. Anyway, the solution I found is to add a registry key that enables the same shared drives to be accessible when running in administrator mode.
The registry key location is:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/System
And the key to add is called:
EnableLinkedConnections
And should be created as a DWORD with a value of 1 (0x00000001)
I checked with the machines running Windows 7 and they do NOT have this key, yet they still work fine. So I expect this isn't the only solution, but it does seem to work (no side effects noted yet). I would assume that Windows 10 has a specific setting somewhere that by default prevents mapped drives from automatically being available with "run as administrator".
For reference, I found this information here.
In fact, here is a more "official" recommendation for using this reg key.
This is unlikely to have anything to do with Windows 10, just with the configuration of your machine. What you describe is normal and covered by this KB article. Nothing I can check for myself so just try the recommended workarounds, follow up at superuser.com if necessary.
Different users/system tasks maybe running. As such, you have the X drive mapped, but others do not. You could do the drive mapping on additional users on your Windows installation as well. As you stated, this should not be a Windows 10 only issue, but also Windows 7+ and elevated privileges.
Maybe you could use a configured parameter for the X: path and load at runtime, or even try using UNC paths which will resolve at runtime and not need the drive to be mapped.
\\ServerNameOrIP\A Folder\a_file.txt.
In the code, you would need:
System.IO.File.Exists("\\\\ServerName\\A Folder\\a_file.txt");
I have created an installer in Visual Studios 2010 and i added some custom actions. It is meant to be a workstation installer so it would check to see if certain files exist in the destination folder and move shortcuts around after. However if i use a UNC path or a mapped network drive path as the destination folder and use the commands My.Computer.FileSystem.FileExists and System.IO.File.Exists they return false on a network drive. Is there a way to figure out in a custom action if the file exists. Currently I am using Windows XP to run the installer so UAC is not a factor here.
Custom actions in a VS setup project run with the system account, which has no network privileges and so can't get to see them. Also, mapped drives are a user-profile thing, not system-wide, so they belong to a particular user, so the system account won't see them because of that too.
So there isn't a good way to do this. It might work if the custom action ran with the installing user's account, but then it would not be elevated, and you'd need to go into the CustomAction table in the MSI file and turn off the the msidbCustomActionTypeNoImpersonate bit.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa368069(v=vs.85).aspx
I have a setup project that installs my app to the typical program files directly.
My app periodically saves some temporary images to the apps installation folder. It seems on Vista, the permissions are not setup for write permissions. I can change it manually in windows explorer and it works, but I would rather have the setup project do that automatically.
How can I do this?
Is there a better/more normal place to put temp images that won't have permissions issues?
It is not Vista specific, this will happen with any kind of user account that doesn't have admin privileges. Your program just can't write to folders like c:\program files\blah. That UAC disables admin privileges has been publicized for a long time now. Use Environment.GetFolderPath() to get the path to an ApplicationData folder that you can write to.
See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb756940.aspx for details on UAC issues for vista. These problems can also occur in other versions of windows when running applications from non-admin accounts. You should only write data to app data or temp directories and not program files.
We just did a move from storing all files locally to a network drive. Problem is that is where my VS projects are also stored now. (No versioning system yet, working on that.) I know I heard of problems with doing this in the past, but never heard of a work-around. Is there a work around?
So my VS is installed locally. The files are on a network drive. How can I get this to work?
EDIT: I know what SHOULD be done, but is there a band-aid I can put on right now to fix this and maintain the network drive?
EDIT 2: I am sure I am not understanding something, but Bob King has the right idea. I'll work with the lead web developer when he gets back into the office to figure out a temporary solution until we get some sort of version control setup. Thanks for the ideas.
While we do use Source Control, we do also run all our projects from Network Drives (not shared directories, private directories on network drives). The network drives are backed up nightly, and also use Volume Shadow Copy, so if you need to revert to something before it made it's way to SC, then you can.
To get projects to run correctly with the right permission, follow these steps.
Basically, you've just got to map the shared directory to a drive, and then grant permission, based on that Url, to all code. Say you map to "N:\", then use "N:\*" as your Url pattern. It isn't obvious you need to wildcard, but you do.
The question is rather generic so I'll give an answer to one issue I was facing.
I run Visual Studio 2010 using a Parallels virtual machine on my Mac while keeping all my projects on the mac side via a network share. Visual Studio however wouldn't load the projects assembly files from there. Trying to set the rights using "caspol" alone didn't help in my case.
What finally worked for me to allow Visual Studio to load assemblies from a network share was to edit the file
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe.config" (assuming a default installation).
in the xml "<runtime>" section you have to add
<loadFromRemoteSources enabled="true"/>
You may have to change the permissions on that file to allow write access. Save the file. Restart Visual Studio.
In the interests of actually answering the question, I copied this comment from jcarle.com:
Trusting Network Shares with Visual Studio 2010 / .NET Framework v4.0
January 20, 2011, 4:10 pm
If you are like me and you store all your code on a server, you will have likely learned about trusting a network share using CasPol.exe. However, when moving from Visual Studio 2008 (.NET Framework 2.0/3.0/3.5) over to Visual Studio 2010 (.NET Framework 4.0), you may find yourself scratching your head.
If you are used to using the Visual Studio Command Prompt to quickly get to CasPol, you may find that some of your projects will not seem to respect your new FullTrust settings. The reason is that, unless you are carefully paying attention, the Visual Studio Command Prompt defaults to adding the .NET Framework 4.0 folder to its path. If your project is still running under .NET Framework 2.0/3.0/3.5, it will require setting CasPol for those versions as well. Just a note, I have also personally had more success with using 1 as a code group instead of 1.2.
To trust a network share for all versions of the .NET Framework, simply call CasPol for each version using the full path as below:
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\CasPol -m -ag 1 -url file://YourSharePath* FullTrust
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\CasPol -m -ag 1 -url file://YourSharePath* FullTrust
I would not recommend doing that if you have (or even if you don't have) multiple people who are working on the projects. You're just asking for trouble.
If you're the only one working on it, on the other hand, you'll avoid much of the trouble. Performance is going to out the window, though. As far as how to get it to work, you just open the solution file from VS. You'll likely run into security issues, but can correct that using CASPOL. As I said, though, performance is going to be terrible. Again, not recommended at all.
Do yourself and your team a favor and install SVN or some other form of source control and put the code in there ASAP.
EDIT: I'll partially retract my comments. Bob King explains below the reason they run VS projects from a network drive and it makes sense. I would say unless you're doing it for a specific reason like Bob, stay away from it. Otherwise, get your ducks in a row before setting up such a development environment.
So I was having a similar issue. Visual Studio wouldn't recognize a network location I had mapped for a drive letter for anything. The funny thing is, it worked for a day. I set up my project and began working on it and had no issues. Then, I shut down and the next day nothing works. I couldn't read/write files in code, output my executables or anything. My project is local but my output was intended to be thrown up on the network.
Anyways, the problem is probably about the administrator context but one way to fix it which I found while digging around online is to get Visual Studio to browse to the drive in question some how. There are plenty of ways to do this but VS will magically be able to recognize mapped drive letters. My solution is to go the the Debug Output Location in the Project Properties, click browse and go to my previously made output location on my network drive and Voila!!!
I wanted to put this up because I spent half a day trying to figure this out and figured it might save someone else some time. Thanks much and good luck!!!
Erik
I understand this is an older thread, but this was the best thread I found when looking to solve a similar issue I had visual studio 2013 on a virtual box (using Win 8.1) and the code on the host machine (Win 7). Although I could open the solution, I could not compile. All of the other answers on this relate to older software, so I am adding this answer to update this frequently found question with the solution that worked for me.
Here's what I did; Made a registry entry to be able to use a UNC path as the current directory.
WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious, system-wide problems that may require you to reinstall Windows NT to correct them. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use this tool at your own risk.
Under the registry path:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
\Software
\Microsoft
\Command Processor
add the value DisableUNCCheck REG_DWORD and set the value to 0 x 1 (Hex).
WARNING: If you enable this feature and start a Console that has a current directory of an UNC name, start applications from that Console, and then close the Console, it could cause problems in the applications started from that Console.
Found this information at link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156276
How about we rephrase this into a question that everyone can answer? I have the exact same problem as the initial poster.
I have a copy of VB 2008 (recently upgraded from VB6). If I store my solutions on the backed up network drive, then it won't run a single thing ever. It gives "partially trusted caller" errors for accessing a module, even when "allowpartiallytrustedcallers" is set in the assembly. If I store the files on my (not backed up) C:, then it will run wonderfully, until I put it on the share drive for everyone to use, and I'm back to my same problem.
This isn't a big request. I just want to be able to put a solution and executable on the share drive and run it without an absurd amount of nonsense about security. I shouldn't have to cram all my work into form files.
-Edit: I found the problem with why it was ignoring the AllowPartialllyTrustedCallers command. I'm trying to reference ADODB, which doesn't allow partially trusted. So, no network executable can access a database? What does Microsoft have against intranets anyway?
I was facing the same issue just recently so this answer is more for the sake of keeping track of my own knowledge. Anyway, should soumeone find it useful, below is the issue and the solution.
Issue:
NET 4.0 projects, SVN repo, checkout folders are on local drives, referenced assemblies are build by build server and available on a network drive. Visual studio on W7 is is able to add the reference but unable to build projects.
Solution:
Since NET 4.0 does not automatically provide a sandbox anymore for network assemblies, you have to make those full-trusted via machine.config update. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd409252.aspx
I had a similar problem with opening Visual Studio projects on a network drive, and I fixed it by creating a symbolic link on my local C:\ drive that points to the UNC directory
e.g.
mklink /D "C:\Users\Self\Documents" "\\domain.net\users\self\My Documents"
then you can just open the project using the C:\Users\Self\Documents\ path, instead of the UNC path
(You have to be careful, because Visual Studio will automatically redirect you to the '\\domain.net..' path if you double click the symlink when you're browsing for the project. I had to copy paste the 'C:\Users\' path to get it to open with the drive letter path)
Don't do it. If you have source control (versioning), you do not want your files on a network drive. It totally bypasses all you want to achieve by using source control, because once your files are on a network drive, anyone can modify them .... even while you're currently building your project. Ka-boooom!
PS: this sounds like a typical case of over-engineering to me.
Are you having any specific problems?
If you allow more than one person to open the solution, your first problem will be that the .NCB file (Intellisense) will be locked exclusively and only one user will be able to browse the class tree. And of course you have the potential for one user's changes to overwrite the other user's changes.
You should be warned that some feature in Visual Studio will refuse to work with network drive.
For example, mdf file of SQL Express user instance must be located in local drive.
For another example, if you use UNC path, you have to make sure they are short enought.
i found this helpful while trying use vc11 with parallels which run on mac:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/toolsforwinapps/thread/2ffdcb01-c511-4961-834b-afd5f2fbb8e1, and specifically:
1) You can switch from local debugging to remote debugging and set the machine name as 'localhost'. This will do a remote deployment on your local machine (thus not using the project's directory). You don't need to install the Remote Debugger tools, nor start msvsmon for this to work on localhost.
In case this helps anyone else, I had to do the steps outlined here to add the network share location to Windows intranet zone. In particular, I was having trouble with Visual Studio hanging on load when opening a solution on a network share (i.e. using VMware Fusion and opening a solution from my Mac's hard drive). I also had problems with PostSharp running in this scenario.
If i understand you correctly, your Visual Studio project files are stored on the network drive and you are running them from there. This is what I do and don't have any problems. You will need to make sure that you have set the security policy. You can use Caspol to do this, or via the control panel-admin tools menu.
"How can I get this to work?"
You have a couple choices:
Choice A:
1. Move all files back to your local hard drive
2. Implement some type of backup software on your machine
3. Test said backup solution
4. keep on coding
Choice B:
1. Get a copy of one of the FREE source control products and implement it.
2. Make sure it's being backed up
3. Test it
Choice C:
Use one of the many ONLINE source control repositories available. Google, SourceForge, CodePlex, something.
Well, my question would be why you are asking this. Is it not working when you are storing it on a network drive? I haven't tried this myself, and one problem I could envision would be that .NET code running from a network drive (ie. from the bin\Debug directory, also located on the network drive) would be running in a sandbox mode, unless you mess around with CASPOL (or use 3.5 SP1 which I hear has removed that obstacle).
If you have specific problems, ask about them. Never ask "Why is doing X not working?".
You're not saying if you're just one person or multiple persons accessing the same remote drive, but I'm assuming you're just one for each network directory. Is this correct? If not, no, there is no band-aid. Get version control, move the files back to a local disk.