Develop Reference

Could not write to output file -- Access is denied

I recently switched computers and copied all my projects over to my new local drive. I reformatted the computer I'm on now so it was pretty much a clean machine. Everything seemed to be working fine, but when I opened one of my projects that I had been running from my old machine, it would no longer compile, and I get the following error message:
Could not write to output file 'c:\Users\user\Documents\Projects\RegressionWeb\OnetouchUpload\obj\debug\OneTouchUpload.dll' -- 'Access is denied.'
I'm getting an error like that for each project I have in my solution. I'm also getting this error:
Unexpected error creating debug information file 'c:\Users\user\documents\projects\RegressionWeb\RegressionWeb\obj\Debug\RegressionWeb.PDB' Access is denied
I've searched high and low, and the only similar issues I could find online related specifically to ASP.NET and IIS, neither of which has anything to do with my project (My projects are class libraries of mostly NUnit tests with some support classes).
I am the administrator on my local machine. I have already taken ownership of every file in the project using takeown /f .\RegressionWeb /r /d y and also tried to ensure that nothing had a status of Read-only, but the following file threw an error when I tried changing the read-only property of it's parent folder:
An error occurred applying attributes to the file:
C:...\Regressionweb.sln.DotSettings.user
Access is denied
Basically this project was working perfectly and had no errors from my old computer. After copying over everything, this DotSettings.user file will not be modified, and Visual Studio can't write to any of the dll files. I'm sure the answer must lie in a Visual Studio setting somewhere. Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I think Karl has it right. I had a similar situation once, and what I did was delete the file in question, clean the solution, and then rebuild. If the project needs that file it should recreate it; in my case it didn't need it because it never recreated it, but the project ran just fine.
One other thing I would recommend; you may be selecting the read-only attribute of the parent folder off and selecting this setting to recurse through all sub-folders and files, but that doesn't mean that's what's happening. For all your sub-folders and files (especially the ones that are cropping up as errors) inspect each one individually and make sure the read-only attribute is off.

My money is on your files are read-only. Verify they are read-only and change them or add your files to a source control system and let them get handled by that.

I was able to get this working by closing Visual Studio and then opening it again, but being careful to run Visual Studio "As Administrator". To do this, from the Start menu, right click on Visual Studio and choose "Run as Administrator".

it seems that the same error is sometimes displayed when the app pool user doesn't have access to the %TMP%/%TEMP% folder.
You'll need to grant IIS_IUSRS read and modify access over the temp folder of the user the app pool is running as.
This could either be the temp folder in the app pool user's profile, e.g. c:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Local\Temp, or the system temp folder at c:\windows\temp.

See if it is related to this:Could not write to output file - Access is denied
. That would be a bit of a bugger to track down. In this case the project is self-referencing the dll and preventing access to the file.

This has a very simple solution, you just have to make sure that your directory name(folder name) is not the same as your file name. I created a folder by the name Pointers, my code was in a file pointers.cpp. When I compiled the code it kept showing the same error. I just had to change the directory or folder name to L1_pointers. You can change it to anything you want and it worked.

C# Console App executable (.exe) does not save updated file to disk

I have a very simple C# console application that copies a specific node from an existing XML file located on my computer to another XML file, also located on my computer. I've hardcoded the paths in an app.config file within the solution.
When I debug my solution (F5) the files get updated appropriately. However, if I run without debugging (Control+F5) or if I build (or publish) to bin/Release or bin/Debug and run the my-console-app.exe the application fails to save any file to disk.
Strangely this app used to work without issue (it was used in conjunction with a .bat file which called it and deployed the updated configuration file to a server). But over the last few weeks I've noticed this console app has seemingly worked less and less over time to the point where to get my update script to run successfully I have to open this console application's solution, press F5, then run my .bat script.
I've used ProcessMonitor by sysinternals to verify that files are being read/written and it says that files are being written to the file paths that I'm specifying, however when I browse to the directory the file doesn't not exist or is not updated.
I'm using VS2010 on a Mac Mini running Windows 7 Ultimate via Bootcamp.
TL;DR; Console app works and updates files appropriately when debugging but not when run without debugging or as a standalone or published .exe from bin/Release, etc.
var devConfig = XDocument.Load(DevConfigPath, LoadOptions.None);
var prodConfig = XDocument.Load(ProductionConfigPath, LoadOptions.None);
var devMethods = devConfig.Descendants("deliveryMethods");
prodConfig.Root.Element("Heg.EA.Delivery").Element("deliveryMethods").ReplaceWith(devMethods);
try
{
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Dev First Node:{0}", devConfig.Root.Element("ClientDeliveryTest").Element("deliveryMethods").FirstNode.ToString())); // Test Node to ensure file is being read correctly (it is).
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("Production First Node:{0}", prodConfig.Root.Element("Heg.EA.Delivery").Element("deliveryMethods").FirstNode.ToString())); // Test Node to ensure production configuration is updated correctly (it is).
Console.WriteLine("Saving...");
prodConfig.Save(#"C:\ProductionConfig.config"); // FAIL.
prodConfig.Save(#"ProductionConfig.config"); // FAIL.
prodConfig.Save(ProductionConfigPath); // FAIL.
Console.Write("File Saved.");
}
catch (Exception ex) // No exception is ever thrown.
{
Console.Write(String.Format("Error Saving: {0}", ex));
}

Found a solution. I uploaded my solution to my work repository and had my boss check it out. He was able to open it, build it, debug it, and run the exe from bin/Release. However, when he ran the exe, Avast popped up with a friendly message, denying him access, which he remedied and the program execution continued.
I also have Avast. It never prompted me to allow/disallow my app from executing or writing to disk. But I went to the avast options and disabled the AutoSandbox feature and everything worked.
TL;DR; Antivirus settings prevented my console app from writing to disk and didn't prompt me about it.

Unable to copy file "C:\Data.dll" to "bin\Data.dll". The process cannot access the file 'bin\Data.dll' because it is being used by another process

I am getting below mention error in VS 2010. After getting this, Just restarting my machine and its working fine. But while hosting my application in windows server 2008 + IIS 7.0 its not working. Could you please suggest.
Error 107 Unable to copy file "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\solution\Data.dll" to "bin\Debug\Data.dll". The process cannot access the file 'bin\Debug\Data.dll' because it is being used by another process.Services
Error 106 Unable to copy file "C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\source\Business.dll" to "bin\Debug\Business.dll". The process cannot access the file 'bin\Debug\Business.dll' because it is being used by another process.Services

You are compiling the application while it is running and IIS is using the DLLs.
The result is that the compiled DLLs cannot be copied because IIS is using them.
Reset IIS (or at least recycle the relevant application pool) before compiling.
You may want to reconsider setting the IIS web application folder to the project output folder.

Please check your Build Configurations under (VS2010) Build->Configuration Manager.
All projects should be in Debug or Release mode, and also check that the project Build check box is checked correctly.

Command prompt
copy source destination give full path of destination
copy C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\solution\Data.dll" "bin\Debug\Data.dll"
this is for copying file on the the same computer

File.Copy fails when copying a DLL that is not in use

I've built a winforms app (C#) that will take a list of file paths, and copy those files (from a different VS solution) to a new location (In a folder the user specifies) in the same directory structure they currently exist on local file system.
I use the Path class, Directory class etc and everything works wonderfully...except when it reaches a file path that points to a DLL.
The DLLs I am trying to copy are a part of the other solution, and that solution is not currently open.
I have tried restarting computer to make sure visual studio isn't somehow hooking into that DLL even after the solution is closed.
The DLL in question can be copied by regular manual means (i.e. copy and paste shortcut).
So short of creating a batch file in the program, and running xcopy on that DLL path, I don't know of a way to get this to work.
From what I have found from google searches (which isn't much on this particular situation), File.Copy() should work..
Any help would be wonderful, even if it is a link to a duplicate question I may have over looked.
Thanks!
-The error message is: The process cannot access the file [insert file path] because it is being used by another process (The path is definitely correct also)
-Just downloaded and tried to search for the DLL name with Process Explorer.. I also ran a similar exe from command prompt to no avail. It claims nothing is using it. That's why I am utterly baffled by this. Also, I just checked the permissions and everything looks great (i.e. Full Control, owner effective permissions)
-It does not handle open files. It basically build the correct src and dest paths and does a File.Copy() on those. How would I go about handling open files? I'm sure I could figure out if it was open, but what would I do it it were open?

It is not complaining about the file you're trying to copy, it is complaining about the file that you're trying to overwrite with the copy. Lots of candidates for that, virus scanners always get very excited about new DLLs, for example. Or it is loaded into a process, the typical failure mode for trying to implement your own auto-updater.
You can rename the target file to make your copy succeed.

Are you in vista or win7? If so, Check your 'User Account Control Settings'. Sometimes this can interfere with .NET security options and prevent file operations that would otherwise work.

As well as Process Explorer, I would use Process Monitor also from Microsoft so you can see what is happening at the point of failure and allows you to see if anything else is accessing the dll.
Possible culprits are
the program you are running,
your antivirus package
a virus.
If the path it is complaining about is the destination path, then is is possible that the path is too long?
Also, when using Process Explorer, make sure you have enabled the option to show details for all processes and not just your own.

I just ran into this issue as well. I tried copying a .DLL from an FTP server to a local directory (replacing the existing one) and for the life of me I could not get it to work. Keeps giving me an 'Access Denied code: 5' Error.
I then realized that the .DLL on the FTP server was not marked as hidden while the .DLL I was trying to replace was marked as hidden.
Once I changed the local one to also be visible. I had no more issues.
So my solution is:
Make sure both files are visible.
Hope this helps someone

File Not Found in %TEMP% on Win7

I have an odd bug where my code returns a file not found exception but the file seems to be exactly where it should be. My project has some code to run a system cmdlet and look for the results of the cmdlet in an XML output file. We tell the cmdlet to put this output XML in a custom subdir of the system TEMP dir, e.g., C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\SomeFolder\output.xml. We then use the .NET XmlDocument class to open and parse the XML file.
On WinXP, this works. On my dev box, this works. On a clean Win7 test machine, it does not.
My first thought was that I'm running into Vista/Win7 File Virtualization, but our application manifest specifies that our app run as Admin -- and from what I've read, that should bypass file virtualization.
The other wrinkle is that our code likes to use UNC file paths, even if the file is local to the machine. (We have a requirement that the code in question may need to run the cmdlet on a remote machine, and therefore the output XML could be on a remote machine too.) So we try to open the XML file via \MATT-WIN7\C$\WINDOWS\TEMP\SomeFolder.xml rather than C:\WINDOWS\TEMP\SomeFolder\output.xml.
But I removed the UNC path code temporarily and a simple call to File.Exists() still says the XML file is not there, when Windows Explorer shows the file sitting exactly where I think it should be.
Is there some nuance of file virtualization that I have not read about yet?
My workaround is to move the output xml file somewhere else, but that will potentially break the "portability" of our code when it needs to run on a remote machine, because using the %TEMP% location is a location that can be resolved for remote computers pretty easily (via remote registry call to find the system environment variable).
I would prefer to leave the file where it is, and fix our code so it actually finds the file!

There is a user-specific override for the %TEMP% environment variable that points to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp, not to %SYSTEMROOT%\Temp. Make sure your code is looking in the temp folder you expect it to look at.
Update: Based on your comments, it seems that the problem is that your app is not actually being elevated on the test machine, but is elevated on your dev machine. I suspect the following:
you either have UAC disabled on your dev machine or you are running VS as administrator. Big no-no on both. :-)
your binary is not code-signed and is not in one of the two trusted locations - %SystemRoot%\system32 or %ProgramFiles%. For security reasons UAC does not even prompt the user for elevation for apps that have elevation manifest, but are not code-signed or in a trusted location.
You can create a self-signed certificate to code-sign your binary and add that certificate to the test machines, to get the UAC prompt. Once you've confirmed that your app is properly being elevated, your code to access the system %TEMP% folder should work correctly.