I'm using a simple DirectoryInfo
to grab all directories on the root on the C drive. However, I'm running under administrator and i'm getting the error of path access denied, below is the code that I am running. How do I resolve the issue of path access?
DirectoryInfo Dinfo = new DirectoryInfo(@"C:\");
DirectoryInfo[] directories = Dinfo.GetDirectories("*.*", SearchOption.AllDirectories);
On newer versions of Windows C:\Document and Settings
is a junction point, kind of a file system shortcut. It is not a normal directory, which means that it doesn't really work as a normal directory.
If you type in C:\Document and Settings
in the start->run box you will also get an access denied error, so it is nothing specific to your program.
I'm a bit confused by how this works however. I thought that the junction point would be a transparent link to the new location which is c:\users
but obviously not.
Edit
After looking at the duplicate question I'm less confused. The junction point really links to the new location which is c:\users
. However, there is an explicit deny acl for reading on the junction point to prevent anyone from using it to read things:
C:>cacls "Documents and Settings" C:\Documents and Settings
Everyone:(DENY)(special access:)
FILE_READ_DATA
Everyone:R
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:F
BUILTIN\Administrators:F
C:>
If you are running as Administrator you might still run into
- UAC being active. Fix by using "run as..."
- Folders that you can only access when you explicitly take ownership.
C:\Document and Settings is a junction point and additionnally
You cannot access the System Volume Information directory.which is placed on C:\ root you have to trap any security exceptions and skip it to work your code.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Security;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace Solution
{
public class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
DirSearch(@"YOUR PATH");
Console.ReadKey();
}
static void DirSearch(string dir)
{
try
{
foreach (string f in Directory.GetFiles(dir))
Console.WriteLine(f);
foreach (string d in Directory.GetDirectories(dir))
{
Console.WriteLine(d);
DirSearch(d);
}
}
catch (System.Exception ex)
{
Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
}
}
}