I'm trying to decide where the 'correct folder' to store documents and logs created by my windows form application. The application is used in education and has all paths held in the SQL server. Some (like logs file paths are shared) are accessible on network but specifically for temporary documents where should I default the storage to? I've recently tried the Users/username/AppData/ folder but I seem to be getting differing results after installation; so far I have put this down to people user credentials as often in schools they can do whatever they want (yes I know shocking indeed).
If anyone can point me in the direction of an MSDn article or knows better please reply - Thanks.
** Edit 10/09/2013 - Sorry all I should be further explicit. I'm looking for the folder / structure Microsoft has designed for this sort off activity. My application already provides users with the ability to create thier own working directories (there are several required) but I'm keen to use the 'correct' locations for this sort of activity... I thought the right place would be c:/Users/USERNAME/Appdata/APPLICATION FOLDER/ but as I mention I've come across a few access rights issues when uses install the application.... hope that explains better - thanks
To create temporary directory you can use something like this:
public string GetTempDirectory() {
string path = Path.GetRandomFileName();
Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), path);
Directory.CreateDirectory(path);
return path;
}
Path class info
Directory class info
Related
I have a classic asp page in VBS and I am trying to create a file on the web server with the following code.
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set file1 = fso.CreateTextFile("\\localhost\inetpub\wwwroot\cs\batch\123456dirs.bat", true)
This returns the following error:
|666|800a0034|Bad_file_name_or_number
Line 666 is the CreateTextFile line.
According to the Microsoft docs, this means that I'm trying to create a file with an invalid filename. Then it explains the rules for filenames and mine appears to be perfectly valid.
Any suggestions or ideas on how I can further troubleshoot this?
first thing to check to make sure your users have access to the folder. Assuming you're not using windows authentication, make sure IUSR account has write access to the folder.
second, unless inetpub is set up as a share to folder, you're syntax won't work. if the root of your website is located in the CS folder, you can do something like:
Set file1 = fso.CreateTextFile(Server.MapPath( "/cs/batch/123456dirs.bat" ), true)
The createtextfile() function runs on the web server but in the context of the local server itself. Simply put, any path you give it must resolve as if you were logged on to a windows desktop on the server and tried to CD to that path.
The format \localhost... is a UNC path. See this question for a discussion about UNC paths and windows. Unless you know for sure that there is a UNC path mapped for \localhost then that is probably your issue. You may be making the assumption the \localhost will be a reasonable path to use, but as I said unless you know for sure it is available then this is an invalid choice.
Lastly, if you decide to set up a share for \localhost, you will be getting in to some interesting territory around the user context that the web server operates in. You see you will have to set up the share for the IIS user that is configured as the run-as identity for IIS, so you will need to know that and create the required config to give that user the share.
If it were me, I would switch to using a standard windows path, although even then you need to appreciate the run-as user context and security config, etc.
I've searched around online but can't find what I'm after. Basically, during an install, we fire off a separate executable that basically brute forces a few folders to be read/write enabled for the user group "EVERYONE".
Now, the person that wrote this never took into consideration system language. I had a call with a customer in France that kept failing installation because "EVERYONE" isn't what we would expect.
I'm after an API call to Windows that would return a security group name which would be "safe" to use in a localized environment. Essentially I'm looking to safely edit this code so instead of hardcoding in "EVERYONE", we call a function instead.
The fundamental mistake here is not so much the use of EVERYONE, but rather that the code is using names at all. Instead of using names you should use the well-known SIDs. In your case you need S-1-1-0.
I recently moved a ColdFusion site from one domain to the other with no issue (practically) besides one which I am having some trouble figuring out. I am a LAMP developer / designer and CF is a bit foreign to me so pardon my ignorance.
The site is working properly except for the store component, I am getting the following error "The .cart.models.store name is not a valid component or interface name.Component and interface names cannot be empty and cannot start or end with a period.". The only piece of code that I have changed throughout this process has been the config.ini, I changed the vmap=SitenameDev to vmap= as the notes in this file recommneded to do if the directory housing the site was the webroot directory.
Any insight on this error or common issues when transferring will be greatly appreciated, as always.
JN
FYI, the config.ini is something specific to the app you're dealing not a ColdFusion convention of any sort. Most likely the "vmap" entry therein means "virtual mapping". Its value is probably being used to resolve a path to an object (i.e. [value of vmap] + ".cart.models.store". With it empty, you're getting an error because ColdFusion wants its paths to not start with a period, and is unable to resolve the location of the file its looking for to create an object.
So previously this path was "SitenameDev.cart.models.store". What you need to do is figure out what directory houses the "cart\models\store" hierarchy. Then in the ColdFusion administrator setup a mapping to its parent directory - that is an alias to a physical directory that ColdFusion recognizes. Then whatever alias you choose should be set as the "vmap" value in the config.ini file.
I used to be able to launch a locally installed helper application by registering a given mime-type in the Windows registry. This enabled me to allow users to be able to click once on a link to the current install of our internal browser application. This worked fine in Internet Explorer 5 (most of the time) and Firefox but now does not work in Internet Explorer 7.
The filename passed to my shell/open/command is not the full physical path to the downloaded install package. The path parameter I am handed by IE is
"C:\Document and Settings\chq-tomc\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\
EIPortal_DEV_2_0_5_4[1].expd"
This unfortunately does not resolve to the physical file when calling FileExists() or when attempting to create a TFileStream object.
The physical path is missing the Internet Explorer hidden caching sub-directory for Temporary Internet Files of "Content.IE5\ALBKHO3Q" whose absolute path would be expressed as
"C:\Document and Settings\chq-tomc\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files\
Content.IE5\ALBKHO3Q\EIPortal_DEV_2_0_5_4[1].expd"
Yes, the sub-directories are randomly generated by IE and that should not be a concern so long as IE passes the full path to my helper application, which it unfortunately is not doing.
Installation of the mime helper application is not a concern. It is installed/updated by a global login script for all 10,000+ users worldwide. The mime helper is only invoked when the user clicks on an internal web page with a link to an installation of our Desktop browser application. That install is served back with a mime-type of "application/x-expeditors". The registration of the ".expd" / "application/x-expeditors" mime-type looks like this.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\.expd]
#="ExpeditorsInstaller"
"Content Type"="application/x-expeditors"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\ExpeditorsInstaller]
"EditFlags"=hex:00,00,01,00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\ExpeditorsInstaller\shell]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\ExpeditorsInstaller\shell\open]
#=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\ExpeditorsInstaller\shell\open\command]
#="\"C:\\projects\\desktop2\\WebInstaller\\WebInstaller.exe\" \"%1\""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\MIME\Database\Content Type\application/x-expeditors]
"Extension"=".expd"
I had considered enumerating all of a user's IE cache entries but I would be concerned with how long it may take to examine them all or that I may end up finding an older cache entry before the current entry I am looking for. However, the bracketed filename suffix "[n]" may be the unique key.
I have tried wininet method GetUrlCacheEntryInfo but that requires the URL, not the virtual path handed over by IE.
My hope is that there is a Shell function that given a virtual path will hand back the physical path.
I believe the sub-directories created by IE are randomly generated, so you won't be able guarantee that it will be named the same every time, and the problem I see with the registry method is that it only works when the file is still in the cache...emptying the cache would purge the file requiring yet another installation.
Would it not be better to install this helper into application data?
I'm not sure about this but perhaps this may lead you in the right direction: try using URL cache functions from the wininet DLL: FindFirstUrlCacheEntry, FindNextUrlCacheEntry, FindCloseUrlCache for enumeration and when you locate an entry whose local file name matches the given path maybe you can use RetrieveUrlCacheEntryFile to retrieve the file.
I am using a similar system with the X-Appl browser to display WAML web applications and it works perfectly. Maybe you should have a look at how they managed to do it.
It looks like iexplore is passing the shell namespace "name" of the file rather than the filesystem name.
I dont think there is a documented way to be passed a shell item id on the command line - explorer does it to itself, but there are marshaling considerations as shell item ids are (pointers to) binary data structures that are only valid in a single process.
What I might try doing is:
1. Call SHGetDesktopFolder which will return the root IShellFolder object of the shell namespace.
2. Call the IShellFolder::ParseDisplayName to turn the name you are given back into a shell item id list.
3. Try the IShellFolder::GetDisplayNameOF with the SHGDN_FORPARSING flag - which, frankly, feels like w'eve just gone in a complete circle and are back where we started. Because I think its this API thats ultimately responsible for returning the "wrong" filesystem relative path.
Some follow-up to close out this question.
Turned out the real issue was how I was creating the file handle using TFileStream. I changed to open with fmOpenRead or fmShareDenyWrite which solved what turned out to be a file locking issue.
srcFile := TFileStream.Create(physicalFilename, fmOpenRead or fmShareDenyWrite);
I'm looking for a way to find a the windows login associated with a specific group. I'm trying to add permissions to a tool that only allows names formatted like:
DOMAIN\USER
DOMAIN\GROUP
I have a list of users in active directory format that I need to add:
ou=group1;ou=group2;ou=group3
I have tried adding DOMAIN\Group1, but I get a 'user not found' error.
P.S. should also be noted that I'm not a Lan admin
Programatically or Manually?
Manually, i prefer AdExplorer, which is a nice Active directory Browser. You just connect to your domain controller and then you can look for the user and see all the details. Of course, you need permissions on the Domain Controller, not sure which though.
Programatically, it depends on your language of couse. On .net, the System.DirectoryServices Namespace is your friend. (I don't have any code examples here unfortunately)
For Active Directory, I'm not really an expert apart from how to query it, but here are two links I found useful:
http://www.computerperformance.co.uk/Logon/LDAP_attributes_active_directory.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Directory (General stuff about the Structure of AD)
You need to go to the Active Directory Users Snap In after logging in as a domain admin on the machine:
Go to start --> run and type in mmc.
In the MMC console go to File -->
Add/Remove Snap-In Click Add Select
Active Directory Users and Computers and select Add.
Hit Close and then hit OK.
From here you can expand the domain tree and search (by right-clicking on the domain name).
You may not need special privileges to view the contents of the Active Directory domain, especially if you are logged in on that domain. It is worth a shot to see how far you can get.
When you search for someone, you can select the columns from View --> Choose Columns. This should help you search for the person or group you are looking for.
You do not need domain admin rights to look at the active directory. By default, any (authenticated?) user can read the information that you need from the directory.
If that wasn't the case, for example, a computer (which has an associated account as well) could not verify the account and password of its user.
You only need admin rights to change the contents of the directory.
I think it is possible to set more restricted permissions, but that's not likely the case.
OU is an Organizational Unit (sort of like a Subfolder in Explorer), not a Group, Hence group1, 2 and 3 are not actually groups.
You are looking for the DN Attribute, also called "distinguishedName". You can simply use DOMAIN\DN once you have that.
Edit: For groups, the CN (Common Name) could also work.
The full string from Active Directory normally looks like this:
cn=Username,cn=Users,dc=DomainName,dc=com
(Can be longer or shorter, but the important bit is that the "ou" part is worthless for what you're trying to achieve.
Well, AdExplorer runs on your Local Workstation (which is why I prefer it) and I believe that most users have read access to AD anyway because that's actually required for stuff to work, but I'm not sure about that.
Install the "Windows Support Tools" that is on the Windows Server CD (CD 1 if it's Windows 2003 R2). If your CD/DVD drive is D: then it will be in D:\Support\Tools\SuppTools.msi
This gives you a couple of additional tools to "get at" AD:
LDP.EXE - good for reading information in AD, but the UI kinda stinks.
ADSI Edit - another snap-in for MMC.EXE that you can both browse AD with and get to all those pesky AD attributes you're looking for.
You can install these tools on your local workstation and access AD from there without domain admin privileges. If you can log on to the domain, you can at least query/read AD for this information.
Thanks adeel825 & Michael Stum.
My problem is, though, i'm in a big corporation and do not have access to log in as the domain admin nor to view the active directory, so i guess my solution is to try and get that level of access.