Question

• I have the path of an executable file (C:\Test\n4.TestConsole.exe).
• File.Exists(path) returns true.
• File.OpenRead(path) gets me its stream with no problem.
• Process.Start(path) throws a System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception with this message:

  The system cannot find the file specified.

What am I doing wrong?

_{Windows 8 Professional x64 – .NET Framework 4.5}

---

Edit: Here is the code.

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    public string Path { get; set; }

    public Form1()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        // I put a breakpoint here and verify the Path's value is
        // C:\Test\n4.TestConsole.exe.

        // File.Exists returns true.
        MessageBox.Show(File.Exists(Path));

        // File.OpenRead doesn't throw an exception.
        using (var stream = File.OpenRead(Path)) { }

        // This throws the exception.
        Process.Start(Path);
    }
}

Answer 1

It’s probably a missing DLL or other dependency. You might like to compare the PATH environment variable when you run it directly via Process.Start(exe_path) and when you run it via Process.Start("cmd", "/k " + exe_path).