Error writing Files as local user

Question

When attempting to download and write a file as a local user (ie, not run as admin), the following code is throwing an UnauthorizedAccessException(Access to the path is denied.). Originally, I assumed that this was due to the application attempting to write files directly to the C drive. However, I get the same error when attempting to save files to the local user's documents drive, as gotten by this:

Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal);

This seems to be a windows 10 specific issue, as the application runs fine in previous versions of windows (even writing directly to C:// as a local user, which I had thought would be blocked).

private bool DownloadFile(Stream srcStream, string dstFile)

    {

        bool success = false;

        byte[] buffer = new byte[16384];

        int byteCount;

        FileStream destStream = null;

        try

        {

            destStream = File.Create(dstFile);

            while ((byteCount = srcStream.Read(buffer, 0, 16384)) != 0)

            {

                destStream.Write(buffer, 0, byteCount);

            }

            success = true;

        }

        catch(Exception)

        {

            return success;

        }

        finally

        {

            try { destStream.Close(); }

            catch (Exception) { }

        }

        return success;

    }

I have checked, and the local user account has full access to their Documents folder, so I'm stumped as to why this isn't working.

Answer 1

Ok I just did a unit test with your code.

The problem is

  destStream = File.Create(dstFile);

This is a folder not a file!

try this:

destStream = File.Create(dstFile + "\Test.txt");

And tadaaaaa. No more exception ;)

You can not write into a folder. only inside file.

and please use using() when needed :)

Unit test:

     [TestMethod]
            public void TestMethod1()
            {
                var path = Environment.GetFold`enter code here`erPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Personal);
// path = "C:\Users\pix\Documents"
                using (var memoryStream = new MemoryStream())
                {
                    var result = DownloadFile(memoryStream, path);
                    Assert.IsFalse(result);
                    result = DownloadFile(memoryStream, Path.Combine("FILE.txt"));
                    Assert.IsTrue(result);
                }
            }

            private bool DownloadFile(Stream srcStream, string dstFile)
            {
                bool success = false;
                byte[] buffer = new byte[16384];
                int byteCount;
                FileStream destStream = null;
                try
                {
                    destStream = File.Create(dstFile);
                    while ((byteCount = srcStream.Read(buffer, 0, 16384)) != 0)
                    {
                        destStream.Write(buffer, 0, byteCount);
                    }
                    success = true;
                }
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                    return success;
                }
                finally
                {
                    try { destStream.Close(); }
                    catch (Exception) { }
                }

                return success;
            }

Error writing Files as local user

Sign up