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
The problem is put as follows:
I installed my VS2013 on a FAT32 disk and it works nice except with windows 8 app development, where the XAML designer just won't open while requesting elevated privilege of running "icacls" commands, of which I approves of course, to modify the permission on the IDE folder to gain access to it, only to fail because it's FAT32 and it just doesn't have any permission mechanism. As a result, the designer says that it doesn't have the permission to specific folders, which makes no sense to me.
Previously I installed VS2012 on C: partition, which was NTFS and ran into the same issue. However, I solved it by assigning proper permission on destination folders. Yet this time, it doesn't work in that it has no option for permission and security on a FAT32 partition except "hidden" and "readonly". I have also tried other tricky ways like trying to link the IDE folder to a duplicate on a NTFS partition, but haven't found the solution yet.
Is there anyone out there who knows any workaround or runs into the same issue?
FYI, the exception thrown by VS designer:
System.Security.SecurityException
Designer could not be started because of a permissions issue on the drive to which it is installed. Please check the permissions of the folder before trying to start the designer.
I've recently got a new Mac laptop and am running VS2010 in a Parallels virtual machine. It's mostly working out well for me, but I'm having some problems with debugging specific project types, related to the fact that the projects are being accessed via a network share. Test projects don't run because the test runner can't load the tests' DLL. Web projects fail to run in the Visual Studio mini web server, throwing the following exception:
'An error occurred loading a configuration file: Failed to start monitoring changes to path\to\web.config'.
I've spent the evening trawling the web with little luck on this. After reading these two posts, I tried out the usual CasPol changes, but then found this post from one of the early VS2010 betas indicating that CasPol is no longer needed/supported in .NET 4.0 and VS2010.
The network share is accessible via both a mapped drive and the UNC path. The host for the UNC path is .pfs; according to this post Windows treats host names starting with a dot as originating in the Internet Zone.
The virtual machine runs its applications under the administrator account, which appears to have all the necessary permissions on the network share to create, read, write and delete files and folders. I say "appears to have" as I can't view the Security Properties of the appropriate folder via Explorer: the Security tab just isn't present.
Has anyone managed to successfully load and debug web and test projects from a network share in VS2010?
UPDATE: I tried loading the solutions in VS2010 on a separate native Windows machine using the IP address of my MacBook, with mixed results. The test project again failed to run with the error:
Error loading \\192.168.0.4\alastair\Code\project\bin\Debug\Tests.dll: Could not load file or assembly 'file://\\192.168.0.4\alastair\Code\project\bin\Debug\Tests.dll' or one of its dependencies. Operation is not supported. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131515)
However, the ASP.NET MVC project runs correctly as expected in this setting, and I get exactly the same results here if I use the NETBIOS name of the MacBook.
Of course, in order to do this, I had to enable SMB sharing in Snow Leopard, which wasn't required to access the location in my Parallels VM. Maybe there's some setting in Parallels that I need to tweak to change permissions on the share?
I've also flagged this question for the moderators to request it be moved to StackOverflow; I think it might be a more appropriate forum than SuperUser.
Try setting <loadFromRemoteSources enabled="true"/> under the runtime element of devenv.exe.config, as suggested in the answer to this question. It fixed the issue for me... Visual Studio still warns me when loading a project from the share, but running tests now works.
This assumes the issue is really with Windows "treat[ing] host names starting with a dot as originating in the Internet Zone". It may be something else, but option (3) below should be a quick means of (dis)proving this as part of the problem.
The period (.) is not an oft-used character in a DNS hostname; it's usually interpreted as a separator between hostname and domainname (eg, localhost.localdomain). DNS hostnames are generally restricted to "LDH" -- Letters, Digits, and Hyphens.
UNC paths and Windows Networking (NetBIOS) names may suffer from similar problems. According to RFC3696, periods are legal, but you need to escape periods used within a hostname according to RFC1035. If I'm reading RFC1035 correctly, your hostname should be \.pfs instead of .pfs.
I'd wonder if your issues would work OK if you
changed the hostname (on the share server) to something not including a dot (and updated the client accordingly),
changed the UNC path to the share (on the client) to use the proper escape sequence for periods, or
changed the UNC path to the share (on the client) to use the IP address instead of the hostname.
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.