Accessing a mapped drive in windows service

[mark_me]

Hi, i have a windows service that needs to read files from mapped drive. The drive is located at \\networkshare\mynetwork. This path has a a folder named ConfirmedOrders. so i am trying to read as: "file.readalllines(\\networkshare\mynetwork\confirmedorders\myfile.txt)" in windows service and i get an exception UnauthorizedAccess with msg "Access to path ... was denied". I have another asp.net page which connects to same location and is able to read the file. I have no idea why my service is not reading the file. The account that i am using for service is LocalSystem and yeah, the mapped drive has permissions for all users. I tried switching the service to user account but that requires username and password and am not sure on wat the username and password should be. Tried assingning a username and password and i get a msg that "no mapping between account names and security Ids was done". Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanx

[Paladin2000]

I recently created a simple service that moves files, but it may be similar enough to be useful. It uses a P/Invoke of mpr.dll to create a share without a drive letter; I did this because I ran into the same access denied errors that you mention above. Don't know if this will help or not, but it worked for what I was doing. Good luck!

private const int RESOURCETYPE_DISK = 0x1;

[DllImport("mpr.dll")]
private static extern int WNetAddConnection2A(ref structNetResource pstNetRes, string psPassword, string psUsername, int piFlags);

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
private struct structNetResource
{
public int Scope;
public int Type;
public int DisplayType;
public int Usage;
public string LocalName;
public string RemoteName;
public string Comment;
public string Provider;
}

/// <summary>
/// Transfers the specified file to the pre-defined Destination folder.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="AbsoluteFilename">The full path of the file to transfer.</param>
/// <param name="FileName">The name of the file, without the path.</param>
private void fileTransfer(string AbsoluteFilename, string FileName)
{
try
{
//Define the directory mapping
structNetResource stNetRes = new structNetResource();
stNetRes.Scope = 2;
stNetRes.Type = RESOURCETYPE_DISK;
stNetRes.DisplayType = 3;
stNetRes.Usage = 1;
stNetRes.RemoteName = destinationFolder; //Path to destination folder
stNetRes.LocalName = string.Empty; //This is the drive letter and colon (e.g., Q: )

    //Open the destination connection
    int i = WNetAddConnection2A(ref stNetRes, destinationPass, destinationUser, 0);
    if (i > 0) { throw new System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception(i); }

    //Move the file
    //  \*\*\* This is the line you would want to change \*\*\*
    if (File.Exists(AbsoluteFilename)) File.Move(AbsoluteFilename, destinationFolder + "\\\\" + FileName);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
    throw new System.Exception(ex.Message);
}

}

modified on Monday, July 13, 2009 4:37 PM

[mark_me]

Hi, Thankyou and wow!!! First look through your code was confusing but ful of hope. I might need help though. Do i have to download mpr.dll? and also RESOURCETYPE_DISK (0X1)? also wat will be destinationPass,destinationUser. I thought UNC makes things easy and though my drive letter was Y: , i was using \\xyx\\abc. Thankyou again

[darkelv]

Could it be the user that is being set to run the service has no access to that folder?

[mark_me]

Yeah, it was because of the user. I figured it out though. Thanx for replying.

[Paladin2000]

Also, note that you may need to involve these namespaces: using System.IO; using Shell32; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; mpr.dll should be located in your Windows directory at the following location: C:\WINDOWS\system32. It's part of the OS. (I don't think that they changed it in Vista; I use XP.) RESOURCETYPE_DISK is a constant hex value; you can use that line as-is. destinationUser = "Domain\Username", e.g. @"MSHOME\Jane.Doe" or "MSHOME\\Jane.Doe" destinationPass = The password for the user above. destinationFolder = The path to the remote folder the user account has rights to. e.g., @"\\SERVER\ShareFolder" or "\\\\SERVER\\ShareFolder" Note that the purpose of the code snippet given was to move a file from the local machine to a remote share. You would need to modify it slightly to open files instead. (Change the last line, right before the Catch block.) You don't need to provide a drive letter to use this code; I leave mine as string.Empty.

modified on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:16 PM