使用.NET代码从用户组访问Program Files文件夹

Question

I searched about this on internet but could not find exact answer. In my application, I have a functionality which copies the files in folder (say pqr) to the location where user wanted. The location of source folder is the location of installed application (say c:\\Program Files\\abc\\pqr). When user is logged in to the machine with 'administrator rights' , user is able to use this functionality. But when the user is logged in to the machine with having 'User rights' (non-admin user), this functionality throws exception that access to c:\\Program Files\\abc\\pqr folder is denied . I tried to elevate user privileges by using below attributes to copy method:

[PrincipalPermission(SecurityAction.Demand, Role = @"BUILTIN\Administrators")]
[PermissionSet(SecurityAction.Demand, Name="FullTrust")]

I also tried adding manifest file with below changes:

<requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" />

But none of the approach worked.

Then I installed my application on D drive. And after that when I tried with the non-admin user the functionality worked as expected.
So when the application is installed in C:\\Program Files , functionality was not working for non-admin user.But after installing the application to another location it worked for non-admin user.

So my question is, is it possible to give the rights if C:\\Program Files to non-admin user programmatically in the application or we need to have admin users for using this functionality?

Answer 1

1. Changing the manifest is most simple way to elevate privileges. Change it in VS. But it is bad practice to require admin privileges for regular software.

2. You can make program folder accessible for all users during install. For example it can be made with InnoSetup with Permissions: users-modify in [Files] group.

3. If the source files are in Program Files and you copy in another location, probably the problem is in wrong file access when opening source files. Open for reading only.

Answer 2

var startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo("yourApplication.exe") { Verb = "runas" };
Process.Start(startInfo);
Environment.Exit(0);

or

application.exit();

if you are using winforms

but be careful to excute this code one time because if you put it in the load event you will get overflow in memory