Scenario :
I've created a library project which provides interface to installer(exe created using install shield).I want to check whether a particular file exists in the installer folder.
I've tried following :
1). Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location
// Throws "Object reference not set to an instance of an object"
2). new Uri(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath
// return :
C:\Windows\Microsoft.Net\assembly\GAC_32\mscorlib\v4.0_4.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\mscorlib.dll
3). Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location
// returns empty string
4). AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
// returns "C:\Windows\syswow64\" irrespective of the actual path
Could anyone tell me how can I get directory path from where the installer is being executed?
You can use
Directory.GetCurrentDirectory();
to get current directory path
import System.IO
I will answer my own question, It's not possible to get current path from library project. You'll have to get it from installer. There is no other way.
Thank you.
If you want to get the folder where your exe is resting
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
this returns the whole path to the Folder which contains the exe. From there on you can add your folders manually
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory + #"MyFolder1\MyFolder2";
Assuming you are running an MSI-based install built by InstallShield:
The problem you're having is because of the way those calls work. You're implementing this in an external Dll, and Dlls don't have their own current directory - they have the current directory of the process that's calling into the Dll. In this case you're being called from an msiexec.exe process (assuming you are doing this in a custom action) so you'll get msiexec.exe's current directory.
Apart from that, some other observations:
You don't say exactly when you are calling your code, but it might be before the user has chosen the installation folder, so the search doesn't really help.
InstallShield probably provides support for a file search. If this is an MSI setup it definitely does.
Installs hardly ever look for files in an install folder because there is rarely a good reason. If you need the file, add it to your install, or if it's a redistributable then add the standard redist package, maybe a merge module. If that file belongs to another setup, what will you do if that product is uninstalled? Are you checking the version to see if it's compatible with your application? In general, all setups install the files they need and shared files are backwards compatible if they are used by several different products.
Try this one, it always works for me:
Environment.CurrentDirectory
use above property as follow.
string currentDirectory = Path.GetDirectoryName(Environment.CurrentDirectory);
If you want that path in the InstallShield use this
Setup.exe - Use the SETUPEXEDIR property
http://www.installshield.com/news/newsletter/0206-articles/SetupExeDir.asp.
Depending on version of installshield you are using try different properties
1. SRCDIR
2. SETUPEXEDIR
3. SUPPORTDIR
If you have a C# code to read preperties use MsiGetProperty like below
MsiGetProperty( hMSI, "SETUPEXEDIR", Value, Size )
string assemblyPath = Context.Parameters["assemblyPath"];
int i = assemblyPath.Length - 1;
while (assemblyPath[i] != '\\') --i;
string folder = assemblyPath.Substring(0, i);
Related
I see that there are some ways to get the application folder path:
Application.StartupPath
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
Environment.CurrentDirectory
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase)
System.IO.Path.GetDirectory(Application.ExecutablePath)
What is the best way depending on the situation?
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is probably the most useful for accessing files whose location is relative to the application install directory.
In an ASP.NET application, this will be the application root directory, not the bin subfolder - which is probably what you usually want. In a client application, it will be the directory containing the main executable.
In a VSTO 2005 application, it will be the directory containing the VSTO managed assemblies for your application, not, say, the path to the Excel executable.
The others may return different directories depending on your environment - for example see #Vimvq1987's answer.
CodeBase is the place where a file was found and can be a URL beginning with http://. In which case Location will probably be the assembly download cache. CodeBase is not guaranteed to be set for assemblies in the GAC.
UPDATE
These days (.NET Core, .NET Standard 1.3+ or .NET Framework 4.6+) it's better to use AppContext.BaseDirectory rather than AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory. Both are equivalent, but multiple AppDomains are no longer supported.
Application.StartupPathand 7. System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath) - Is only going to work for Windows Forms application
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
Is going to give you something like: "C:\\Windows\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v4.0.30319\\Temporary ASP.NET Files\\legal-services\\e84f415e\\96c98009\\assembly\\dl3\\42aaba80\\bcf9fd83_4b63d101" which is where the page that you are running is.
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory for web application could be useful and will return something like "C:\\hg\\Services\\Services\\Services.Website\\" which is base directory and is quite useful.
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() and 5. Environment.CurrentDirectory
will get you location of where the process got fired from - so for web app running in debug mode from Visual Studio something like "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IIS Express"
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase)
will get you location where .dll that is running the code is, for web app that could be "file:\\C:\\hg\\Services\\Services\\Services.Website\\bin"
Now in case of for example console app points 2-6 will be directory where .exe file is.
Hope this saves you some time.
Note that not all of these methods will return the same value. In some cases, they can return the same value, but be careful, their purposes are different:
Application.StartupPath
returns the StartupPath parameter (can be set when run the application)
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
returns the current directory, which may or may not be the folder where the application is located. The same goes for Environment.CurrentDirectory. In case you are using this in a DLL file, it will return the path of where the process is running (this is especially true in ASP.NET).
For a web application, to get the current web application root directory, generally call by web page for the current incoming request:
HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath();
System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.ApplicationPhysicalPath;
Above code description
I started a process from a Windows Service over the Win32 API in the session from the user which is actually logged in (in Task Manager session 1 not 0). In this was we can get to know, which variable is the best.
For all 7 cases from the question above, the following are the results:
Path1: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path2: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path3: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram\
Path4: C:\Windows\system32
Path5: C:\Windows\system32
Path6: file:\C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path7: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Perhaps it's helpful for some of you, doing the same stuff, when you search the best variable for your case.
In my experience, the best way is a combination of these.
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase
Will give you the bin folder
Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
Works fine on .Net Core but not .Net and will give you the root directory of the project
System.AppContext.BaseDirectory and AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
Works fine in .Net but not .Net core and will give you the root directory of the project
In a class library that is supposed to target.Net and .Net core I check which framework is hosting the library and pick one or the other.
To get the path to .exe for simple desktop applications I use
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location)
which returns path to .exe.
Also be aware that for several domains the .exe for default domain will be returned, or the .exe executed by first call of ExecuteAssembly(String) and that if the entry is unmanaged, the null will be returned.
Be careful with GetExecutingAssembly(), naming was confusing for me, as I have expected to get the .exe, but it returns the .dll or .exe, where the code is placed, so in case of GetExecutingAssembly() placed in library it returns the library.
I have used this one successfully
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName)
It works even inside linqpad.
Root directory:
DriveInfo cDrive = new DriveInfo(System.Environment.CurrentDirectory);
var driverPath = cDrive.RootDirectory;
If you know to get the root directory:
string rootPath = Path.GetPathRoot(Application.StartupPath)
this one System.IO.Path.GetDirectory(Application.ExecutablePath) changed to System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath)
I have a Visual Studio installer that installs a Windows Service hosting a Web Service.
What I am trying to resolve is to give users during installation a choice of where a particular script is located on the box and once they have set the location to then update the location to the app.config file which the application can then use.
At the moment during install I have added a custom folder and added to that the folder the file. This all gets installed. I want to keep this as a default, but to be able to overwrite it with the users new choice.
I have added a user interface and a text box to capture the user's choice, and a installer class, but this is failing when I try it. Where it is failing is when it is try to find my App.Config file. It says that it cannot find it. In my code, I have written:
string path = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
So, to me my app.config has not been installed into this location when the installation is running at that moment in time.
So, can someone please advise how I can override and save the new location.
Thanks
What you're doing won't work for a number of reasons.
Custom actions in VS setup projects run after all the files have been installed, so it's too late to choose a folder where files can be installed. UI is supposed to be at the front where the normal wizard UI forms run, but VS setups don't support custom dialogs.
Installer classes with UI tend to do strange things because they are called from the execute sequence in the MSI, and the apartment threading won't work.
You're not running in an interactive user environment. Your installer class is being called from an msiexec process running with the system context. If you need to load files, name the path explicitly.
If you're going to stick with Visual Studio setups, your best bet is to install the script to a normal default location and have your app offer a way to copy it somewhere. Then the user can copy it somewhere new whenever they want and you're running in a normal user environment.
You can not get the directory full path where the MSI is being installed using,
string path = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
above code will probably return a path C:\Windows\System32 which has the msiexec.exe location which handles the MSI installation. Use the following code within installer class to get the installation path.
string installationPath = Context.Parameters["assemblypath"];
Rest of your questions are not clear.
Folks
Managed to resolve this myself.
I added an afterinstall event to the Installer class. In this event I added this line of code
string assembley = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase;
UriBuilder uri = new UriBuilder(assembley);
string path = Uri.UnescapeDataString(uri.Path);
string directory = Path.GetDirectoryName(path);
To get the config file - I did this
Configuration config = ConfigurationManager.OpenExeConfiguration(Assembly.GetAssembly(typeof(ProjectInstaller)).Location);
This gives me what I want and it works
What is the best method of getting the path the C# executable is running from?
I need to use it for temp folders etc and currently I'm using:
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase)
But I then need to do a:
.Replace("file:\\", string.Empty)
as this gives me a URI type path (i.e. has file:\ at the start) which is unusable with some other parts of my code.
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
Not an accurate answer to your question, however I would suggest to have a look at:
Path.GetTempFileName()
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.path.gettempfilename.aspx
Try with Environment.CurrentDirectory
This returns the folder of your currently working directory.
For temp folders etc. you should NOT use the executing directory for security reasons...
MS has something built-in for this:
You can use ApplicationData (for roaming users) or LocalApplicationData (for non-roaming users) or CommonApplicationData (for non-user-related things) from Environment.SpecialFolder - anything (files+folders) you create within those folders is already setup with the needed permissions/rights for the user running you app - nobody else (except perhaps Administrator) can go there... to make it even more secure you could encrypt data you put there...
see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.environment.specialfolder.aspx
Try:
Application.StartupPath
It should return the path without the executable filename.
If the assembly has been shadow copied then Assembly.Location will point to the shadow copy of the dll.
If you want to know the location of the build output directory use Assembly.CodeBase, i.e.:
Path.GetDirectoryName(new Uri(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().CodeBase).LocalPath)
Useful if you want to access other resources from the directory of the assembly for example when running test suite.
.NET Core 3.0 introduced IHostEnvironment.ContentRootPath.
.NET Core 2.1 introduced IHostingEnvironment.ContentRootPath (obsolete since Core 3.0).
Personally I find that these are what I generally need: the place where included content is located.
I can confirm that IHostEnvironment.ContentRootPath also returns the desired result when running as a unit test. (Tested with xUnit, but the test framework should not matter.)
For self-contained single file applications (available since .NET Core 3.0) you should use System.AppContext.BaseDirectory. The assembly location will be empty so you can't rely on it.
Example
using System.Reflection;
Console.WriteLine($"AppContext.BaseDirectory: {AppContext.BaseDirectory}");
Console.WriteLine($"Assembly.Location: {Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)}");
Console.ReadLine();
Output (Not published):
AppContext.BaseDirectory: C:\[..]\bin\Debug\net6.0-windows\win-x64\
Assembly.Location: C:\[..]\bin\Debug\net6.0-windows\win-x64
Output (Published / Single File):
AppContext.BaseDirectory: C:\[..]\bin\Debug\net6.0-windows\win-x64\publish\
Assembly.Location:
string executableLocation = Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location);
string txtfile = Path.Combine(executableLocation, "example.txt");
I see that there are some ways to get the application folder path:
Application.StartupPath
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
Environment.CurrentDirectory
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase)
System.IO.Path.GetDirectory(Application.ExecutablePath)
What is the best way depending on the situation?
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory is probably the most useful for accessing files whose location is relative to the application install directory.
In an ASP.NET application, this will be the application root directory, not the bin subfolder - which is probably what you usually want. In a client application, it will be the directory containing the main executable.
In a VSTO 2005 application, it will be the directory containing the VSTO managed assemblies for your application, not, say, the path to the Excel executable.
The others may return different directories depending on your environment - for example see #Vimvq1987's answer.
CodeBase is the place where a file was found and can be a URL beginning with http://. In which case Location will probably be the assembly download cache. CodeBase is not guaranteed to be set for assemblies in the GAC.
UPDATE
These days (.NET Core, .NET Standard 1.3+ or .NET Framework 4.6+) it's better to use AppContext.BaseDirectory rather than AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory. Both are equivalent, but multiple AppDomains are no longer supported.
Application.StartupPathand 7. System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath) - Is only going to work for Windows Forms application
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location)
Is going to give you something like: "C:\\Windows\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v4.0.30319\\Temporary ASP.NET Files\\legal-services\\e84f415e\\96c98009\\assembly\\dl3\\42aaba80\\bcf9fd83_4b63d101" which is where the page that you are running is.
AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory for web application could be useful and will return something like "C:\\hg\\Services\\Services\\Services.Website\\" which is base directory and is quite useful.
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory() and 5. Environment.CurrentDirectory
will get you location of where the process got fired from - so for web app running in debug mode from Visual Studio something like "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\IIS Express"
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase)
will get you location where .dll that is running the code is, for web app that could be "file:\\C:\\hg\\Services\\Services\\Services.Website\\bin"
Now in case of for example console app points 2-6 will be directory where .exe file is.
Hope this saves you some time.
Note that not all of these methods will return the same value. In some cases, they can return the same value, but be careful, their purposes are different:
Application.StartupPath
returns the StartupPath parameter (can be set when run the application)
System.IO.Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
returns the current directory, which may or may not be the folder where the application is located. The same goes for Environment.CurrentDirectory. In case you are using this in a DLL file, it will return the path of where the process is running (this is especially true in ASP.NET).
For a web application, to get the current web application root directory, generally call by web page for the current incoming request:
HttpContext.Current.Server.MapPath();
System.Web.Hosting.HostingEnvironment.ApplicationPhysicalPath;
Above code description
I started a process from a Windows Service over the Win32 API in the session from the user which is actually logged in (in Task Manager session 1 not 0). In this was we can get to know, which variable is the best.
For all 7 cases from the question above, the following are the results:
Path1: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path2: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path3: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram\
Path4: C:\Windows\system32
Path5: C:\Windows\system32
Path6: file:\C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Path7: C:\Program Files (x86)\MyProgram
Perhaps it's helpful for some of you, doing the same stuff, when you search the best variable for your case.
In my experience, the best way is a combination of these.
System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().CodeBase
Will give you the bin folder
Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()
Works fine on .Net Core but not .Net and will give you the root directory of the project
System.AppContext.BaseDirectory and AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory
Works fine in .Net but not .Net core and will give you the root directory of the project
In a class library that is supposed to target.Net and .Net core I check which framework is hosting the library and pick one or the other.
To get the path to .exe for simple desktop applications I use
Path.GetDirectoryName(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location)
which returns path to .exe.
Also be aware that for several domains the .exe for default domain will be returned, or the .exe executed by first call of ExecuteAssembly(String) and that if the entry is unmanaged, the null will be returned.
Be careful with GetExecutingAssembly(), naming was confusing for me, as I have expected to get the .exe, but it returns the .dll or .exe, where the code is placed, so in case of GetExecutingAssembly() placed in library it returns the library.
I have used this one successfully
System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Process.GetCurrentProcess().MainModule.FileName)
It works even inside linqpad.
Root directory:
DriveInfo cDrive = new DriveInfo(System.Environment.CurrentDirectory);
var driverPath = cDrive.RootDirectory;
If you know to get the root directory:
string rootPath = Path.GetPathRoot(Application.StartupPath)
this one System.IO.Path.GetDirectory(Application.ExecutablePath) changed to System.IO.Path.GetDirectoryName(Application.ExecutablePath)
I want to get the installed path of a C# project setup. In C#.net. How can I use this path in Installer Class for checking that the setup is installed or not?
Actually I want to check if the setup is installed in the system or not . If it is, I want to repair this.
Create a register entry with the installer.
hkey_local_machine/software/ and a var installdir with value the path.
When you have an update version of your program, check in the installer class for that key. If it exists update, else new install.
You can get the path of the folder that you are installing to from
Context.Parameters["targetdir"]
So you can check that is empty before installing. Obviously that won't tell you if there are other versions installed elsewhere.
I don't understand exactly what you want but you could simply check whether a directory exists by using Directory.Exists method
Environment.SystemDirectory gets the system directory on the machine.