Develop Reference

Using impersonation to modify the config file on app startup as a non-admin user

When my application starts I run some code to encrypt certain connection strings in my config file(s).
The config files are located in the installation directory in "C:\Program Files (x86)\myapplication".
When the user starting the application is not an admin (which is always the case) the application gives an error because it cannot edit a file in program files if not an admin.
I have some difficulties in trying to impersonate an admin user.
I tried some different approaches I found on the net but with no success.
I hope someone can provide me with a way of achieving this.
What I DON'T want is a prompt for an admin user to login, or change the config file's manifest to require admin privileges to continue.
I DO want to temporarily gain admin access (impersonate admin) to encrypt\modify the config file and then continue as the real user.

Access denied while accessing files in c:\Programdata in Windows 10

I am designing an command line application for Windows 10 that require to replace some files in c:\programdata folder. But when I use File.Copy or File.Move, it throws an exception as:
Access to the path 'C:\ProgramData\***' is denied.
I have added app.manifest with requireAdministrator but it doesn't work. Am I missing something?

Make sure you have permissions on that folder. e.g. Right Click on folder > Properties > go to Security tab, and check if you have permissions. Also try your application by right click and 'Run as Administrator'.

Try to check the user identity the actually runs the process/execute file.
This user should by "System" to have permissions to Move/Copy files on the Disk.
In debug mode you can always check the Task Manager => Processes and see the User Name for your process.

CreateDirectory at server in a shared machine

I have an ASP.NET application running over a shared .NET server. I want to allow the current logged user to create a folder into a specific path when the application needs it. So, I'm just checking the following:
var userFolderPath = Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/storedphotos"), username);
if (!Directory.Exists(userFolderPath)) {
Directory.Create(userFolderPath);
}
When I run this code into my local machine it works perfectly. However, when I publish the application to that server and try to do the same, it's returning me:
"Access to the path 'xxxxxx' is denied."
I think it could be a permission issue. Once I cannot change anything at the IIS into the server or any configuration, is there a way to let the user is using my application to create the folder without problems?

try this:
"Access to the path 'xxxxxx' is denied."
As Error says You need to assign Permissions to Folders
Right Click Folder
Go to Security Tab
Click on Edit
Click on Add
Click on Addvance
Find Now
Give Permission to IIS_IUSRS (Full Control)
Click On OK
Click On OK
Click On Full Control in allow
Click On OK
Again Run the Application
Note: If Above things are not working then try to give same permission to
NETWORK,NETWORK SERVICE Users

Access Denied - CreateDirectory C#

I have an ASP.NET application that has a button. When you click the button it has one line where is creates a sub-directory in a directory I have Read, Write, Modify through an AD group on another server (NOT the web server).
When I click the button I get an Access Denied error to the sub-directory.
Impersonate is set to true in the web.config.
Authentication is Windows.
WindowsIdentity is set to me.
The application is running under my account because of the above two things.
I can click the button and have it open the folder in Windows Explorer. So I have access to the parent.
If I create a subfolder in the folder. I can click the button and have it open the subfolder in Windows Explorer
I can do all this using C# code.
Only when I try to create a subfolder using C# does it tell me Access Denied. But I have Read, Write and Modify permissions.
Do not understand why this does not work.

You should try granting permission to the sysname\iis_wpg group.

Which version of IIS are you running?
Check the identity which is running the website in the application pool section. Verify that identity has the proper permissions on that directory. That is the identity which is being used to do the OS work.
Note that you might need to grant the identity in 7/7.5 via the command line on the directory such as
icacls c:\inetpub\wwwroot /grant "IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool":(OI)(CI)(RX)
see Icalcs documentation.

Failed to update .mdf database because the database is read-only (Windows application)

I've created a database windows application using in C#. My application is running successfully on Windows XP, but it doesn't properly execute on Vista or Windows 7 systems. My application shows a message similar to
Failed to update .mdf database because the database is read-only
Can anyone give me a solution to this?

The big thing that changed between Windows XP and Windows Vista/7 is the introduction of UAC which means that users, even if created as administrators, don't routinely have read/write access to "important" locations such as the %programfiles% (Usually C:\Program Files or C:\Program Files (x86)) directory. This is why your application works on Windows XP and not on Windows Vista.
You need to store your DATA in the %programdata% directory (which is usually C:\ProgramData) if the data is shared between users on the machine or %appdata% (which is usually C:\Users\USERNAME_GOES_HERE\AppData\Roaming) if it is specific to a given user. You'll now no longer encounter the problem of being unable to write to the file.
The reason for this is that by storing data in your programs installation directory you were doing the wrong thing. Windows didn't stop you from doing this previously, but it was fairly widely documented that %programfiles% was not the appropriate place to store data.

If the MDB file is in your application path, then the default permissions would require elevation of rights to be able to write to the files -- I'd recommend moving the data to the ApplicationData shared folder, where end users will have write permissions by default

I ran into this related to localdb, the file is named:
myfolder/mysolution/myproject/App_Data/something.mdf
The way I fixed it is to right-click on the top level folder (myfolder) and then choose Properties, then choose Edit, then select Users, add to users either the Modify permission or both Modify and full control (this is a development environment) and then click apply.
So in other words, in my experience, it doesn't matter what folder you put the localdb in, you just need to give Users permission to write.

You should add the Modify permissions for IIS_IUSRS user to *.mdf file.

go to the folder Where the program is installed and right click on the database file and Properties -> Security -> Group or Username (Click users one by one and see below for the permissions)
If for the user if not set to full control, then click EDIT -> Select the user and give full control..