Access Files Remotely on Windows using a Windows Service

Question

I have a Windows service that executes a .bat file. This .bat file executes some Sava code that reads some files' information. The files I need to access are not in the same machine that the service is running. So I should access them using a mapping like G:\\ .

Even if the files exist on G:\\ when I run the service, File exists() and File canRead() always return false.

If I execute the .bat manually, everything works great, but I need to execute it using a service.

The service is running with a user that has permissions to read all files on this G:\\ mapping.

Does anyone have a clue as to what can be wrong? Why can't I access these remote files, when running as a Windows service?

The OS in question is Windows XP .

Answer 1

The problem usually is that the user running the service does not have the same G: drive as well as the same access.

I suggest you log in as the user running the service and see what that user sees.

Answer 2

Drive mappings aren't shared between sessions, and service sessions don't get drive mappings reestablished automatically the way interactive sessions do. You should put a net use command in the batch file to explicitly establish the drive mapping in the service session.