C# Access to the path 'C:\Documents and Settings\' is denied

Question

I\'m using a simple DirectoryInfo to grab all directories on the root on the C drive. However, I\'m running under administrator and i\'m getting the error of pa

Answer 1

If you are running as Administrator you might still run into

• UAC being active. Fix by using "run as..."
• Folders that you can only access when you explicitly take ownership.

Answer 2

C:\Document and Settings is a junction point and additionnally You cannot access the System Volume Information directory.which is placed on C:\ root you have to trap any security exceptions and skip it to work your code.

Answer 3

On newer versions of Windows C:\Document and Settings is a junction point, kind of a file system shortcut. It is not a normal directory, which means that it doesn't really work as a normal directory.

If you type in C:\Document and Settings in the start->run box you will also get an access denied error, so it is nothing specific to your program.

I'm a bit confused by how this works however. I thought that the junction point would be a transparent link to the new location which is c:\users but obviously not.

Edit

After looking at the duplicate question I'm less confused. The junction point really links to the new location which is c:\users. However, there is an explicit deny acl for reading on the junction point to prevent anyone from using it to read things:

C:>cacls "Documents and Settings" C:\Documents and Settings Everyone:(DENY)(special access:)

                               FILE_READ_DATA

                      Everyone:R
                      NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:F
                      BUILTIN\Administrators:F

C:>

Answer 4

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Security;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace Solution
{
    public class Program
    {
 static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            DirSearch(@"YOUR PATH");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }

        static void DirSearch(string dir)
        {
            try
            {
                foreach (string f in Directory.GetFiles(dir))
                    Console.WriteLine(f);
                foreach (string d in Directory.GetDirectories(dir))
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(d);
                    DirSearch(d);
                }

            }
            catch (System.Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(ex.Message);
            }
        }
    }
}