Question

I have a windows service which is trying to access an xml file from the Application directory.

Windows Service Installed directory : C:\Services\MyService\MyService.exe
Path of the xml file : C:\Services\MyService\MyService.xml

I am trying to access the file using the following code.

using (FileStream stream = new FileStream("MyService.xml", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
  {
         //Read file           
  }

I get the following error.

“Can not find file : C:\WINDOWS\system32\MyService.xml”

My service is running with local system account and I don’t want to use absolute path.

Answer 1

There is an elegant solution for this from the following link.

http://haacked.com/archive/2004/06/29/current-directory-for-windows-service-is-not-what-you-expect.aspx/

As my service is running both as console/service I just called

Directory.SetCurrentDirectory(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory) 

before running it as Service E.g.

static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            if (args.Length == 0)
            {
                Directory.SetCurrentDirectory(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory);
                RunAsService();
            }
            else
            {
                RunAsConsole();
            }
        }