I am coding an unmanaged C++ console application on Windows 7 using Visual Studio 2010. I ran into an issue where files on my local computer or a network location work fine, but my code can't see anything on a mapped drive. I can simply this issue to a program that is the following 2 lines:
const WCHAR * libPath = _T("L:\MyFiles\myfile.txt");
DWORD fa = GetFileAttributes(libPath);
Where fa comes back as 0xFFFFFFFF, L is a mapped drive, and L:\MyFiles\myfile.txt is a valid text file.
How do I access mapped drives?
One possibility is that your application is running in elevated mode (ie. with Run as administrator selected). The problem is discussed in greater detail here.
The solution is to use net use to mount the drive or merge this into your registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"EnableLinkedConnections"=dword:00000001
Note that a reboot is required after making the above change.
This is a problem with Visual Studio. "Start without debugging" is NOT the same as running from explorer on Windows 7. The program works fine started from Windows Explorer. This is due to different UAC rights.
Related
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 looked every where for a download for the .exe, I have tried the fix.reg sloution, I have tried clicking run and expanding the ex_ file into the .exe, but anytime I click something I am met with this error "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file" It also says I may not have access to the item. I am the only user/admin and this is a fresh install of the Windows XP black edition.
I cant even use CMD. Surely there has to be a fairly simple solution? Right? I have the RunDll32.ex_ I just dont have permission to run anything like CMD to expand it. Can I simply use a .exe from another computer running same OS?
It seems you have a big problem on the registry or a broken file system.
As you said you could use a rundll32.exe from another computer with the same version of OS. Check the Service Pack installed in your Windows XP and the other computer.
You could try to copy the DLL to a pendrive from the other computer to yours.
If you cannot copy the new DLL you should need to start Windows in Safe Mode (Press F8 before Windows starts and select on the Black menu text window Boot in Safe Mode), because Windows protects all the files in c:\Windows\ and c:\windows\system32
If Safe Mode don't works, next try should be to use a Windows Live CD. Hiren's Boot has a mini Windows XP embedded.
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/
You need to download the ISO, burn It and boot the computer with it. Run the mini Windows XP and when you see the desktop run the Windows Explorer and copy the DLL from the pendrive to your fixed hard disk. Take care because your hard disk should not be the C: (that should be the mini Windows XP partition), look in other drive units for your data.
We have code that adds Debugger.Launch() and Debugger.Break() on certain condition, and this functionality doesn't seem to work in Windows 8 / Windows Server 2012
In previous versions of Windows this worked just fine, launching a window that would show the Visual Studio Debug dialog.
Is this a new breaking change in Windows8/Windows Server 2012?
There is an open ticket with microsoft connect that contains a temporary workaround for this issue.
Just-In-Time debugging, operation attempted is not supported
From comment below:
Just change HKCR\AppID\{E62A7A31-6025-408E-87F6-81AEB0DC9347}\AppIDFlag from 0x28 to 0x8.
This is indeed a change in Windows 8. I couldn't find any public documentation yet (albeit Win8 hasn't yet shipped to customers). However, I'll ask someone on the relevant team to make this information available on MSDN as appropriate.
This is part of Session 0 isolation work that started in Windows Vista.
To go back to Win7/2008R2 settings you need to do the following:
For the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows, set the "NoInteractiveServices" value to 0, which is (in Windows 8) defaulted to 1. This allows you to manually start the service that facilitates the visual dialog to you in your session, "Interactive Services Detection" (ui0detect). Without setting this key, the ui0detect service will fail to start with an error such as "Function not supported".
net start ui0detect
Of course, you can choose to make this service start automatically with Windows and always boot into being able to debug Session 0 Processes.
I am trying to build a windows service that includes a Lua component, and links with Lua's shared libraries. I am building the code in Eclipse/CDT with MinGW. It builds fine, but when I run it, I get "Application failed to Initialize Properly (0x80000003). Click OK to terminate".
I am looking for clues as to what might be going on. A Hello World program compiles and runs fine, so there are no basic environment issues (I hope!). BTW, I am running on XP Home.
Update:
OK, I have figured out, by some guesswork, what was going on, and thought I'd post this for the benefit of others who might run into a similar problem - I think the lua DLL I was linking to, at runtime, was a different version than the one I built with. This caused the app initialization to fail I guess. When I made them to be the same file, things started working. I have not looked into why this would cause app init to fail, but I guess some symbol being at a different address or something? Or could it be that the DLLs were built with different tool chains?
This might be caused by not having permissions to access the DLLs required by the application. Are you logged in as an Administrator or member of the Administrator group?
Try logging in as Administrator to see if the problem goes away. This will help determine if it's a permissions issue, and then you can explore that further.
You could also try using the Dependency Walker (depends.exe) to see if this highlights any problems.
Cause of this problem is to try to run DOS programs, or 16-bit programs in Windows XP
To run DOS programs, or 16-bit environment in windows xp
To do so go to Start , Run and type gpedit.msc
And there go to:
User Configuration
Administrative Templates
Start Menu and Taskbar
And double-click on
Add "Run in Separate Memory Space" check box to Run dialog box
Select Enabled and then OK.
If the problem is not resolved, we will have to disable the Dr Watson , Do the following:
Go to the Start
Programs
Accessories
System Tools
System Information
Then go to:
Tools
Dr Watson
Or go to Start , Run and type drwtsn32
And disable:
Dump All Thread Contexts
And
Create Crash Dump File
And press:
OK
And then restart your computer .......
And then you will be able to run any game or program is running Dos or 16-bit, within Windows xp.
In Visual Basic 6, when I attempt to access Project > References, it throws an error:
Error accessing system registry
I am:
Logged in as the local computer administrator
running Windows XP Professional and
I can execute regedt32.exe and access all the registry keys just fine.
VB6 was installed as the local administrator.
Any idea why this happens?
I'm running crystal reports 8.5 and it supposed to already have fixed that issue but apparently I still have the issue with 8.5 installed. I have also made the attempt of reinstalling crystal reports with no luck on the issue.
Depending on the Windows OS you have (I have Windows 7 Enterprise), you might want to try giving administrator rights to the REGTLIB.EXE (located in C:\Windws). Right click on the REGTLIB.EXE file. Select Properties from the pop-up menu. Then select the Compatiblity tab. On the Compatiblity tab, check/select the Run this program as Administrator checkbox. Click OK to save your changes. It might take take care of the problem for you. It worked for me. Good luck.
For me this worked:
goto C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98
change the property of VB6.EXE by right click->Compatibility In privilege level section, check the option Run this program as Administrator
If you're running Office 2010 (Beta) Word (apparently) writes a restricted registry key. VB throws the error when scanning the registry. The key I have is:
HKCR\TypeLib\{00020905-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\8.5
For Regmon - Filter for Process Name -> "vb6.exe" and Result -> ACCESS DENIED. Helps find it very quickly.
Fixed it with PSToosl (PSEXEC) to run registry editor. The command line is,
psexec -i -d -s c:\windows\regedit.exe
psexec needs to be run with elevated-permissions.
Edit by Jim: I'm on a Windows 7 (x64) box. Elevated permissions require the PSTools solution. XP can get away with a little less.
You could try Process Monitor to see which registry keys are accessed.
I got this on a machine that I was using for VB6 development. I had been building a lot of COM DLLs from VB6 (without binary compatibility) and the cruft that had built up in the registry eventually got too much.
Have a look at what size the registry is and what limit you have set. I doubled the registry size and then went looking for a good registry hoover.
Here is a solution from Microsoft. It references the Crystal Reports problem, but the solution just uses regedit32 to walk the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID registry branches for dimmed keys and correcting the security on those keys. There are also instructions to fix the security if regedit32 is unable to access the key. Article ID: 269383
In Windows 7 go to start menu then right click "Microsoft Visual Basic 6" then select properties and click Compatibility from the dialog box that appears then tick "Run this program as an administrator".
Have you tried this? Basically, it seems that it is a crystal reports issue. Hope that helps.
Perhaps worth a try going to the "User Account Control Settings".
Regards,
When I installed VB6 on Win7-64 (using instructions easily found by a search engine), it worked fine. UAC was off -- i.e. set to "never notify."
After a few weeks I turned UAC on -- i.e. set it to its default. VB6 then couldn't compile because of the "Error accessing the system registry" problem. Unfortunately, turning it off again didn't help. Apparently the damage done by turning it on was irreversible. I can't explain why this should be, but that's my experience.
Giving REGTLIB.EXE administrative privileges while leaving UAC off sounded like a great idea, but that didn't work for me either.
Finally, using Process Monitor and PsTools as described in other posts here worked. However, I had to give Full Control to large parts of my registry to Everyone. This didn't apply just to isolated keys. It seems that the compiler needs to add keys to major nodes, so I had to open up these entire nodes.
Aside from the fact that working through these steps took hours, I'm now much more exposed than I was before I tried to increase security via UAC, However, I need VB6 and don't see another solution short of a new computer.
Lesson: Don't use UAC with VB6. Except if you've arrived here it's too late for that.
It's VB6 installation issue. Try to re-intall VB6 on your system. Otherwise open "visual studio 6.0" with "Run as Administrator". Then open/browse your project .vbp file via - New Project -> Existing tab.
I have fixed the problem. But none of the suggestion above worked. What I did is giving everyone full control over the SYSTEM key in the registry. This creats a security break. I am running 64bit Windows 7 with vb6 serice pack 6B.
I'm running Windows 10 Pro (10.0.16299 Build 16299) 64 bit. I was having this error when trying to compile a VB6 DLL.
I saw several answers in this post about running in compatibility mode as administrator. I thought I would first try just running in compatibility mode for Windows XP (sp2). I was able to compile my DLL after checking that box. I didn't need to run as administrator.