Question

Basically I have a FileExplorer class written in Python 2.6. It works great, I can navigate through drives, folders, etc.
However, when I get to a specific folder ‘C:\Documents and Settings/.*’*, os.listdir, on which my script is based, throws this error:

WindowsError: [Error 5] Access is denied: ‘C:\Documents and Settings/.‘

Why is that? Is it because this folder is read-only? Or is it something Windows is protecting and my script cannot access?!

Here is the offending code(line 3):

def listChildDirs(self):
    list = []
    for item in os.listdir(self.path):
        if item!=None and\
            os.path.isdir(os.path.join(self.path, item)):
            print item
            list.append(item)
        #endif
    #endfor
    return list

Answer 1

In Vista and later, C:\Documents and Settings is a junction, not a real directory.

You can’t even do a straight dir in it.

C:\Windows\System32>dir "c:\Documents and Settings"
 Volume in drive C is OS
 Volume Serial Number is 762E-5F95

 Directory of c:\Documents and Settings

File Not Found

Sadly, using os.path.isdir(), it will return True

>>> import os
>>> os.path.isdir(r'C:\Documents and Settings')
True

You could have a look at these answers for dealing with symlinks in Windows.

• Create NTFS junction in Python
• Symlinks in windows