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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-26T21:53:05+00:00

I have a Windows form App which write to log files using log4net. The

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I have a Windows form App which write to log files using log4net. The log file path in the app.config file is defined as:

<file type="log4net.Util.PatternString" value="Logs/LogFileName" />.

I have an msi setup project, which installs the above app. I install the App on the development machine, run the installed App, and as expected, it writes Log files under the directory, InstallDirectory/Logs/. The dev machine has a Win XP SP3 with all read write permissions.

But when I install the same on a testing machine, which has Windows 7 and I am not sure of the permissions, there is no “Logs” directory and no log files.

In both cases, InstallDirectory is C:\Program Files\Dir1\Dir2.

While I try to figure out where the files are, on the test machine by adding:

log4net.Appender.FileAppender rootAppender = (log4net.Appender.FileAppender)((log4net.Repository.Hierarchy.Hierarchy)LogManager.GetRepository()).Root.Appenders[0];
string filename = rootAppender.File;
MessageBox.Show(filename);

to the code, can someone please shed some light.

  • Why could the files be missing?
  • Does Win 7 has any different ways to deal with new files into the Windows installed drive?
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    As others have said, don’t run as admin to work around this issue. Write to a folder/file that you have access to.

    You can expand environment variables in your configuration to get special folders:

    https://web.archive.org/web/20121226213809/http://www.l4ndash.com/Log4NetMailArchive/tabid/70/forumid/1/postid/16299/view/topic/Default.aspx

    (or, as recommended in the deleted post on this question by Jon Skeet, an article that is a bit more generic: Where Should I Write Program Data Instead of Program Files?)

    Try:

    ${LocalAppData}/MyProgram/Logs/Filename

    Or just:

    ${AppData}/MyProgram/Logs/Filename

    As for which of these two to pick – I’m not sure what “roaming” is, so I don’t know why you’d prefer AppData or LocalAppData. Probably worth a different question 🙂

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