First I create a setup from a project,
and I install it.
When the program reads and writes from app.config,
I get an UnauthorizedAccessException.
This works perfect in visual studio, but with creating a setup and installing it,
it always crashes at this point. Someone who knows how to solve this?
Thanks
youll have to provide some context as to how your running it. Are you logged in as administrator? What version of windows? where is it running from? Does the error occur when reading or writing or both?
This sounds like a permissions issue. Check the permissions of the app.config file in the install folder compared to the user running it. Likely the permissions of the installed location are more restrictive than the run folder that Visual Studio uses.
You can control the permissions of the installation folder and the files that are installed.
Exactly how this is done depends on which installer you are using.
Related
I'm fairly new to windows forms and I was recently tasked with creating a simple software which will be deployed by USB drives to other companies. I made this software so during first run I check for a config.xml file. If it doesn't exist, I will send the user to a form to configure their first time setup. Next time I run the program, it skips this step since the config.xml file is found with its values. The problem is when I debugged this, I found the config.xml file alongside the executable, however when I ran this on a different computer, it stored it into the appdata virtual store. I read up on this and found out it has to do with write permissions.
Is there any way I can get around this without prompting the user to do anything extra on their part such as run as administrator? I also plan on saving the resulting reports generated by the use of this program and was hoping I can have XML files which can be easily found within the application folder.
*Note, I am aware of the built-in settings system but this also stores into appdata and if the executable is moved to another directly, it loses sight of that config and wants to create another.
EDIT : Please be aware I am trying to AVOID writing to the AppData folder. The software is packaged with Visual Studio Installer - Setup Project. A msi file is created which stores the application in C:\Program Files (x86)\\. Inside this directory I have the executable, the exe.config file which is generated, and any DLLs needed. This is the folder I am trying to also store the config.xml file but due to some windows magic, the code thinks its storing it here but in reality it is being stored in the virtualStore folder located in AppData.
Have you thought of using the C:\ most computers have this unlocked. alternitively use Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.ApplicationData);
the AppData folder is stored in the username space and requires no permission. (just remember to create a folder for your program to avoid conflicts)
It is a known issue due to security concerns that write permissions are limited.
More can be learned here.
Since no one was able to answer this, I will post my solution. Instead of packaging the solution using Visual Studio Installer tools. I install the application by copying the resulting executable from the build. This version of the application has write permissions that would have not existed if the application was installed using the resulting .msi from the Installer tools.
I've been trying to research this the last couple of days and it doesn't seem like there is very good support for beginners. All video tutorials I find don't answer the questions I'm asking.
What I want:
I have an application I've written with .NET 4.6.1 in Visual Studio 2015 and I want to distribute an .exe that automatically checks if there are updates. It seems like this is exactly what OneClick is intended to do.
Where I'm at right now:
I want to publish to a shared drive among multiple people. It seems like I put that file path in the "Publishing Folder Location" which produces Setup.exe, MyApp.application, publish.htm, and Application Files. When you go to publish.htm there is an install button that downloads Setup.exe.
Where I'm stuck:
When you download the Setup.exe file onto your local machine and try running it gives an error. The details say it wasn't able to find the MyApp.application file. It seems that file is responsible for knowing what version of MyApp is currently installed on the users machine so that it can be compared to the download location (in my case the shared drive) to see if updates are available.
What am I missing? Do I misunderstand the purpose of OneClick publishing? Shouldn't users be able to visit the publish.htm once to get an .exe and that .exe is used to launch my application and look for updates first? I really appreciate any insight on this topic!
PS I've read over all the MSDN documentation, but it isn't user friendly to beginners in my opinion. Or maybe I'm just slow : )
You understand it exactly right, but when a user navigates to the html page, it downloads multiple files. The .exe, the .application and other supporting files.
You are correct in assuming ClickOnce is what you want. What I've found is the .net dependencies are very particular when using click once. You have to make sure each machine has the correct version of the framework and then they can use the htm site.
What I prefer doing is distributing the .application file to the users machine and just letting them run that. It will check for updates on the server every time it is ran and copy all the necessary decencies to the users Local directory.
You have to direct the users to the .application-File.
That one is responible for versioning (Updating) and executing your Application.
If you execute the .exe it will look for the .application-file to find the infos about the version, which should be installed/downloaded.
NOTE
Not all Browsers (in case of internet/intranet-deployment) support ClickOnce. But there are extensions for almost every browser
I created a setup project in VS2008. This setup copy some folders/files to the program files folder. Also, it adds some windows environment variables.
During the instalation, I am requested to confirm something in a UAC dialog.
This works fine, and all files are copied.
The problem begins when my program is running and I have to modify the a file´s content.
An exception is thrown, saying that I have no permission. Also, if I try to do the same operation in Windows Explorer => same problem.
My question is:
If I have the permission to install my software in program files folder, shouldn´t I be able to write in this folder as well?
Well, it seems that this is a general permission problem. By default normal users (and applications) cannot write to %PROGRAMFILES%. There are folders specially provided for application data storage such as ApplicationData
The reason the setup does install into program files is because this default behaviour of the Windows Installer. Check this link for more info on the Windows Installer and clickonce setup
I'm not sure what happened, but my installer is in a weird state--when I install my MSI, it doesn't seem to be running the current version of the code (I'm using Custom Actions). I verified it by placing some MessageBox.Shows and sure enough, they are not popping up.
It's possible I may have had a few unsuccessful installs previously which may have put the installer in a bad state...but how do I go about resolving this?
Thanks...
If you think you are running older copies of your .msi code, the best way to resolve it is to delete all files from your %temp% directory (type "%temp%" in the windows explorer address bar and you'll see the contents of this directory and delete everything, then try again.)
You shouldn't expect MessageBox.Show to work in a .NET custom installer action. Those actions run in the context of the Windows Installer service, which doesn't run on the interactive desktop. Try logging to the event log (or any other I/O operation that doesn't depend on the current windows desktop and doesn't require an administrative or current-user security token) if you want to debug your custom action.
I have created a setup for my windows application in .NET 2008
After building the same i have the .msi and setup.exe files in my release folder.
The problem i am facing is :
I can install the application using the msi installer files from the shared network folder. But when i copy the installer locally and tried to install it,
i get the following error: Error reading file.Please Try again.
Anybody having any ideas if there are any properties to set in the installer project.
Regards
Constant Learner
Just a thought, you can use Orca to go through the .msi and see if you're having any static references to your development machine within your msi.
The application is a simple windows application without any database associated with it.
Its just a hello world windows application. So i presume its something related to the configuration part of the installation...
Constant Learner