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Sunday, October 21, 2018

C# .NET Bug - Environment.CurrentDirectory does not work with escalated privileges

In a arduous session to figure out some production code, I have discovered that Environment.CurrentDirectory does not work in when running with elevated privileges.

 Specifically if you set app.config to get your app to run as Administrator with UAC prompt
 <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" />
this will return the location of the exe, not the current directory the exe is run from.

 Super frustrating and a bug in .NET.

 Here's the simple source code


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using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace TestExe
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(Environment.CurrentDirectory);
            Console.Read();
        }
    }
}

Here's app.config code

 
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<asmv1:assembly manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" name="MyApplication.app"/>
  <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2">
    <security>
      <requestedPrivileges xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
        <!-- UAC Manifest Options
            If you want to change the Windows User Account Control level replace the 
            requestedExecutionLevel node with one of the following.

        <requestedExecutionLevel  level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" />
        <requestedExecutionLevel  level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" />
        <requestedExecutionLevel  level="highestAvailable" uiAccess="false" />

            Specifying requestedExecutionLevel node will disable file and registry virtualization.
            If you want to utilize File and Registry Virtualization for backward 
            compatibility then delete the requestedExecutionLevel node.
        -->
        <requestedExecutionLevel  level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" />
      </requestedPrivileges>
    </security>
  </trustInfo>

  <compatibility xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1">
    <application>
      <!-- A list of all Windows versions that this application is designed to work with. 
      Windows will automatically select the most compatible environment.-->

      <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows Vista, uncomment the following supportedOS node-->
      <!--<supportedOS Id="{e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0}"></supportedOS>-->

      <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 7, uncomment the following supportedOS node-->
      <!--<supportedOS Id="{35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a}"/>-->

      <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 8, uncomment the following supportedOS node-->
      <!--<supportedOS Id="{4a2f28e3-53b9-4441-ba9c-d69d4a4a6e38}"></supportedOS>-->

      <!-- If your application is designed to work with Windows 8.1, uncomment the following supportedOS node-->
      <!--<supportedOS Id="{1f676c76-80e1-4239-95bb-83d0f6d0da78}"/>-->

    </application>
  </compatibility>

  <!-- Enable themes for Windows common controls and dialogs (Windows XP and later) -->
  <!-- <dependency>
    <dependentAssembly>
      <assemblyIdentity
          type="win32"
          name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls"
          version="6.0.0.0"
          processorArchitecture="*"
          publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df"
          language="*"
        />
    </dependentAssembly>
  </dependency>-->

</asmv1:assembly>


Here's output running TestExe.exe from the c:\windows\system32 directory
at

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