Silverlight How to read a directory locally

Question

I am new to Silverlight and I am trying to do a directory listing of the contents of a directory. However when the first list of this code runs, it throws an exception:

The application itself runs inside of a Browser.

File operation not permitted. Access to path 'C:\\Program Files\\AppName' is denied.

I checked permissions and they are readable so I'm not sure why it's not working.

    DirectoryInfo di = new DirectoryInfo(@"C:\Program Files\AppName");

    try
    {
        if (di.Exists)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("That path exists already.");
        }
    }
    catch (Exception e)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("The process failed: {0}", e.ToString());
    }
    finally { }

Answer 1

Silverlight doesn't let you just access any old directory you want. Silverlight 4 added the ability to access certain well-known paths under the user profile but only in out-of-browser elevated trust applications.

Silverlight is probably not the technology you want to use for this purpose. Look into WPF instead.

Answer 2

If you want to save/load files in silverlight and your app owns the files, you can use isolated storage.

silverlight isolated storage example

Generally, this is useful to store cross-session data locally, or store user settings. Like Josh's answer says, there is no solution to your problem if you need to access other app's files.