Question

I have a windows service and tried to map it using the pinvoke. The code works fine in a console application, but it has no effect in a windows service. According to this:

"net use" command in a Windows Service

I should drop the net use approach and instead give the appropriate privileges, so that my service can access the UNC path ( \server\share\file-path ). How do I set up these privileges? I assume it’s basic Windows privileges that should be set somewhere. Any help is appreciated.

[DllImport("NetApi32.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
internal static extern System.UInt32 NetUseAdd(string UncServerName, int Level, ref USE_INFO_2 Buf, out uint ParmError);

[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
internal struct USE_INFO_2
{
    internal LPWSTR ui2_local;
    internal LPWSTR ui2_remote;
    internal LPWSTR ui2_password;
    internal DWORD ui2_status;
    internal DWORD ui2_asg_type;
    internal DWORD ui2_refcount;
    internal DWORD ui2_usecount;
    internal LPWSTR ui2_username;
    internal LPWSTR ui2_domainname;
}

and…

       static void Main()
        {
            USE_INFO_2 useInfo = new USE_INFO_2();
            useInfo.ui2_remote = @"\\xx.xx.xx.xx\E$"; // "\\xx.xx.xx.xx\E$"
            useInfo.ui2_password = "********";
            useInfo.ui2_asg_type = 0;    //disk drive
            useInfo.ui2_usecount = 1;
            useInfo.ui2_username = "Admin";
            useInfo.ui2_domainname = "rendering";
            uint paramErrorIndex;
            uint returnCode = NetUseAdd(String.Empty, 2, ref useInfo, out paramErrorIndex);
            if (returnCode != 0)
            {
                throw new Win32Exception((int)returnCode);
            }
...

Answer 1

You could launch your Windows service as a domain/windows user that does have access to this path.