Ladies and Gentlemen , I have been stuck with this for a few hours and do not find an answer. I have a Setup project in Visual Studio that creates an installer for my C# application. What I want is to add a folder with an XML file from which my application can read and write to the User's Application Data folder. In the File System Editor window I added the User's Application Data folder. In this folder I added a new folder (renaming it to my app's name) and then place the XML file in there. I also set the AlwaysCreate to true for the folder. The installer should create the folder in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local and add the file to it. However, the installer does not create the folder or the XML file my application uses. What am I missing? Is there another way to install a read/write XML file? Thanks in advance!
Ok, I found what the issue was. If a file is added to the User's Application Data folder it is installed on the target computer at C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming and not into AppData\Local.
Therefore, I changed my application get the file from Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData) instead of Environment.GetFolderPath( Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData).
Hope it helps someone else...
Related
Say I use some .json files to descript some object data which effect to the program's behavior, I hope to use these files in the following scenarios
The default values, for this purpose, I need a set of files follows with the application to be packed and installed.
I wish it could be edited by human manually. (Because something have no interface to be modify on UI)
Both user and the program need to kwnow the location the files will be placed after installation.
In debugging stage, I could put these files in the user\AppData\Local.. folder and I know how to access them, but I don't know how to put files into the package and will them generated to anywhere after install?
Thank you for any suggestion.
ps.
I use the "Blank App (WinUI 3 in UWP)" template to create my
application.
I'm new in UWP and WinUI, I used to write traditional Windows Form programs.
How to include externel user files into UWP side-loading package?
You could place the json file into app's project and set the file property as Content, then it will deploy into installtion folder after package install. and please note the json file is readonly in the installtion folder.
so you could call CopyAsync method copy the file to the destination folder that app's local folder with full permission.
For more details about file access permissions please refer this document.
I have a very simple .NET console application in Visual Studio. I am trying to write some words into a text file.
using (StreamWriter file = File.AppendText("log1.txt"))
{
file.WriteLine("Hello from the text file");
}
If the file does not exist, the application creates it in the autogenerated folder bin/Debug.
Is there a way to create this file in the project's directory, where I have .csproj file?
And more important, in real-world applications, when you work with files, you keep them in bin/Debug? That's why .NET creates them there firstly?
Is there a way to create this file in the project's directory, where I have .csproj file?
Yes, but this can only be done while you are working on your project. Once you are done developing it and try to publish it you won't have access to the location where you have .csproj file, because after publishing you can install it on any PC and it wont have the project you are working on.
And more important, in real-world applications, when you work with files, you keep them in bin/Debug?
No, I assume by real-world applications in your context you mean a published project '.exe' that you can run on any PC. Windows provides you three Data folders that you should use when writing your program so that it works smoothly after publishing:
User Data
Roaming User Data
All User Data
You can acess the above folders in .NET application using the Environment.SpecialFolder:
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.LocalApplicationData)
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData)
Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.CommonApplicationData)
As per your given code, try this :
var fileName = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData),
"log1.txt");
using (StreamWriter file = File.AppendText(fileName))
{
file.WriteLine("Hello from the text file");
}
This way you will be able to publish your program and it will still work smoothly without hard-coding the path as you were doing previously.
That's why .NET creates them there firstly?
If you don't specify a complete path, and just the file name .NET looks into the working directory of the executable, which in this case is bin/Debug
Is there a way to create this file in the project's directory, where I have .csproj file?
Yes. As explained here (second answer) you can use the post-build event to write down the value of $(ProjectDir) in a text file (using command echo $(ProjectDir) > ..\..\projectdir.txt). This macro contains the directory of your .csproj. This command will create the file projectdir.txt with your project directory after a build process so you read this file contents in your code and use what is inside it to pass to File.AppendText as the base directory to create your file log1.txt.
And more important, in real-world applications, when you work with files, you keep them in bin/Debug? That's why .NET creates them there firstly?
That depends on what you want to do. In your case the code creates the file at bin/Debug because that is where your executable are being executed. When you omit the full path to File.AppendText and just pass "log1.txt" as argument, it will create the file in the same folder as the executable are at. If you want a different folder you should specify the folder here (e.g. File.AppendText("C:/log1.txt") will create the file at C:/.
You can create the text file in the root of your project and use copy always to have them in the same place as your executable. If this is just a readonly text file then it's OK because windows doesn't allow you to modify the files reside in Programs folder in OS drive.
If you want your code to modify these text file then you need to put them in appdata folder. In real world example I did this on many project. All the database work my winforms, WPF application need goes in AppData folder.
I'm currently programming an app that need to access to some Excel files.
So what I need is to create a folder in the app files with these Excel files in it but I want that folder to be created at the app install, so they would be accessible for every device that install the app.
The files also need to be modifiable in the future by the user.
The problem is that I don't know how to do it right. Should I just create a new folder in the Solution Explorer and put the Excel files in it ? Should I create the folder programmatically and force the user to put them manually in that folder ?
I don't really know how to do it so that the application will not be too complicated to be modified by the user.
EDIT : Also, if I put the files in the Assets, will the user be able to change them later ?
So what I need is to create a folder in the app files with these Excel files in it but I want that folder to be created at the app install, so they would be accessible for every device that install the app. The files also need to be modifiable in the future by the user.
For your requirement, you could use ApplicationData.LocalFolder to store Excel files, LocalFolder has full access permission. LocalFolder exists in the app's sandbox path and will be created after the app is installed.
Also, if I put the files in the Assets, will the user be able to change them later ?
Assets folder exists in Windows.ApplicationModel.Package.Current.InstalledLocation and it is read only that often use to store some static resource. You can't modify the file at run time.
For more details about file access permissions please refer this document.
Forget the installer. It is deprecated and the new apps on Windows are installed over the store.
If you want to copy some files (Excel templates), you have to put them in your resources. At startup you can check if there is a folder in your App-Data folder with your files, if you don't find them, you can copy it from your resources. So even if the file is deleted, your app can copy them in the next start.
If you use Windows Forms with .NET, you can check this page:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.windows.forms.application.localuserappdatapath?view=netframework-4.8
If you are writing an UWP-app, check this page:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/design/app-settings/store-and-retrieve-app-data
Everything in Visual Studio seems to lead one to putting data files with the application.The app.config goes there, when I create an .XML data file, there is a Copy to Output property that will automatically copy that file to the exe folder. Howerver, it seems that under Vista and Win7 UAC doesn't want the application to be able to write data to any file in the application directory. So I'm changing my evil ways so that I use the LocalApplicationData folder for files I want to read and write. (I just read the app.config so I'm leaving it alone)
I'm using a VS2010 Visual Studio Installer project to create the installer for this app and I can't seem to find a way to target the folder for my .xml file to the LocalApplicationData folder. I can click on the file and see a Folder property but the dialog only has options for Application Folder, User's Desktop and User's Program Menu. Is there some way to do this in the installer or do I have to write code that checks for the file and copies it over from the .exe folder when it doesn't exist? I figure I'm late to this particular party and there must be a canonical way of handling this.
Also, I'm wondering about debugging, is there something similar to the copy if newer functionality in the build process that will now copy this .xml file automatically over to the LocalApplicationData folder whenever I update it?
The Setup project doesn't expose LocalApplicationData in the Special Folders list. You can use it anyway by doing this:
Add a Custom Folder and set the DefaultLocation property to [LocalAppDataFolder]
I am developing deployment project for Vista. In Vista inside AppData folder there are Local, LocalLow and Roaming folders. What I want from installer is to create folder 'Data' inside LocalLow folder and put there file data.xml (AppData\LocalLow\Data\data.xml). Installer should make this operation for all existing user accounts.
How can I achieve this?
This is a screenshot of setup project('Data' folder configuration) which is not working:
Attached example creates the following path: \AppData\Roaming\LocalLow\Data\data.xml
I think a much better approach is to store the xml file in the application's install directory, then, when the application starts up, copy the file to the appropriate directory.
The primary issue is this: what if a user that wasn't on the machine when it was installed launches the application?
Since your installer didn't copy the file to their directory (because it didn't exist), your application would either have to do something or fail anyway.