I'm not sure if this is a StackOverflow or a SuperUser question:
I'm working on some application, which all have the same directory structure:
Main directory : contains the executable, the configuration, and some necessary DLLs (references)
Modules directory : contains the customer related DLLs, their configurations and their references (also DLLs)
Some other directories.
This morning I had the situation that a DLL was copied to a Modules directory, blocking the execution of the application. It was quite difficult to find this.
I would like to configure my "Modules" directory in such a way that no file can be added, while I can freely re-compile the already present DLL(s)?
I'm working with Windows 10, Enterprise edition.
Related
This is a more general and noob question. I am developing a small application in Linux (Ubuntu, to be more precise) and at this point I have an executable, a shared library (.so), a configuration file (.conf) with some settings to be read by the application at the beginning, a data folder with images and other resources to be used during the application life-time (resources that can be also modified, deleted) and of course, I would need some file for logs and messages (right now I am using syslog).
So, my question is, where should each one of these be stored when the application is installed on a client's computer? What is the standard way of organizing all the application's files in Linux? On Windows everything would be found usually in the C:\Program Files\(App Folder) but it looks like on Linux things are more (or less) organized. Can you give me some advices on this matter?
Program data were historically stored in dot-prefixed folders in user's home directory. Modern Linux distributions tends to use ~/.config/program_name folder.
For all files that will not be modified after distibution follow Linux standard:
Ex: project dir: ABC
sub directories:
logs - keep log files
conf - keep configuration files here
bin - executable binaries here
traps - any trap mesg
then depend on what application we develop
Along with you can set level for starting your application from boot level if required.
I have created an .exe file for my application using inno script. Here I want to copy files from my setup folder to the AppData\Local\Temp directory. This is done using the below code.
Source: "WebcamApplet_1-0-0\*"; DestDir: "{localappdata}\Temp\WebcamApplet_1-0-0"
The problem I'm facing is that this code is only copying the files into the sysadmin ie C:\Users\Sysadmin\AppData\Local\Temp (Admin), I have to put it in C:\Users\Manesh\AppData\Local\Temp(User) for my application to work. How do I solve this problem.
Your application is badly designed if it expects files to be installed to the Temp folder. This folder is so named because the user or the system are free to delete all files contained therein at any time -- it is therefore suitable only for temporary use.
Additionally, there is no reasonable and reliable way for a per-machine installer (one running with PrivilegesRequired=admin, which is the default) to install files or settings to per-user folders, including the per-user temporary folder.
If you really really want to do this, you should set PrivilegesRequired=lowest to create a per-user installer -- but bear in mind that this will introduce other restrictions, such as limiting where your application can be installed to. Provided that you are running with lowest privileges, you can then use {%TEMP} to refer to the temporary path.
I'm looking for a way to store all my applications files within a single folder. However, when someone clicks on the folder I want the application inside the folder to open up as opposed to open the folder itself. I want to keep all dependancies and files inside this folder at all times.
I'm doing this because I'm going to be deploying a couple applications on a common framework and want to ensure that they are together and independent of the distribution have all requirements.
Folders are directories, and directories are distinct from files. There's no way to redirect a directory to an executable file. However, you can make a hidden directory (begin name with ".") and use an executable file to provide access to that directory. The directory will then not appear in window manager folders, just the application. However, window managers will not misrepresent the executable file as a directory.
Our product includes several DLLs built from open source into files with default names as delivered by the open source developers. We're careful to install the files in our own directories and we carefully manage the search path (only for our processes) to keep the loader happy.
Another developer -- a towering intellect -- decided it would be easier to install their own build of some of the same open source into C:\WINDOWS under the same default DLL filenames. Consequently, when we launch a process which depends on these open source DLLs, the system searches C:\WINDOWS before our directories and finds the DLLs installed by the other developer. And they are, of course, incompatible.
Ideas which have occurred to me so far:
rename all our DLLs to avoid the default names, which would only make
it less likely we would encounter collisions
load all our DLLs by full path so the loader captures their names into
RAM and doesn't search anywhere else the next time they are requested
For various reasons, neither of these options is palatable at the moment.
What else can we do to defend ourselves against the towering intellects of the world?
You've got only two options: deploy the DLL in the same directory as the EXE (that's where Windows looks first) or using manifests and deploy the DLL to the Windows side-by-side cache. I don't think the latter option is common in the Open Source world but it is the only real fix if you want to share DLLs between different apps.
To add to the already excellent answers, you have a couple more choices:
The preferred solution(s) to this problem, supported since Windows XP, is to turn your dll's into a win32 assembly (They don't have to be .NET but the documentation on creating win32 assemblies with strong names is appallingly light so its easy to get confused and think this is a .NET only technology).
An assembly is noting more complicated than a folder (With the name of the assembly) containing the dlls and a .manifest (With the name of the assembly) that contains an assemblyIdentiy element, and a number of file nodes for each dll in the assembly.
Assembly based searching works even when dlls are statically linked!
The easiest option is to create unversioned assemblies and store them in the same folder as your .exe files (Assuming all your exe's are in a single folder).
If the exe's are in different folders, then there are two ways to access shared assemblies:
You can store your assemblies in a private alternate location if you expect your application to be used on Windows 7 and higher. Create a app.exe.config file for each of your exe's, and point a probing privatePath element to a common folder where you are storing the assemblies.
If you are ok with requiring administrative access to perform installs, (via MSI's) then you can deal with the appallingly bad documentation (well, absent documentation) that deals with giving your assemblies a strong name, and then store the assembly in WinSxS.
If you can't, or do not want to bundle your dlls as assemblies then this page covers dll search order
Using functions like SetDllDirectory are only going to help for dlls loaded dynamically at runtime (via LoadLibrary).
Dll search order used to be:
Directory containing the process exe
Current directory
various windows folders
PATH
Which you could have used to your advantage - launch each exe, setting the "current" directory to the folder containing the OSS dlls.
With the advent of SafeDllSearchMode the search order now is:
Directory containing the process exe
various windows folders
Current directory
PATH
Meaning theres now less control than ever :( - It goes even faster to the "untrusted" c:\windows & System32 folders.
Again, if the initial dll is being loaded via LoadLibrary, and its the dependent dll's that are the problem, LoadLibraryEx with the LOAD_WITH_ALTERED_SEARCH_PATH flag will cause the following search order (Assuming you pass a full path to LoadLibraryEx) :-
Directory part of the Dll path passed to LoadLibraryEx
various windows folders
Current directory
PATH
The directory from which the application loaded is normally the first directory searched when you load a DLL. You can, however, use SetDllDirectory to get the "alternate search order". In this case, the directory you specify to SetDllDirectory gets searched first.
There is also a SafeDllSearchMode that affects this to a degree. Turning it on excludes the current directory from the search.
Maybe just compile them to a static library?
Why not?
Also, the current directory, where the exe is activated from is searched before c:\windows.
I have been working with setting up TeamCity, and I have almost everything working with the exception of being able to compile VS2005 solutions that have referenced assemblies that are outside of the solution path. I have our SVN repository structured as follows
Root
Libraries
Project 1
Trunk
Project 2
Trunk
Project 1 and Project 2 reference third party assemblies located in the Libraries. This works just fine from within the VS2005 IDE and when calling MSBuild on the solution files since the HintPath for all of the references look like this:
..\..\..\Libraries\ThirdParty.dll
The problem I have encountered is that when TeamCity dies the checkout from SVN for Project 1 or Project 2, it places everything into internal directories that don't match the structure of the relative path given by the HintPath.
How do I go about clearing this up, either through a TeamCity configuration or configuring my solutions/directory structure differently? Either one will work for my needs.
Thanks!
If you create a separate VCS root for Libraries, you can use checkout rules to control where the files are placed in the directory structure so that it matches the structure on your local machine.
We set up a network directory with all our third party dlls. Then we mapped the directory to a drive.
That way the dlls weren't a part of our solutions and all projects just call z:\3rdParty\example.dll to get the assemblies.
Someone else on my team actually set up our teamcity, so I could be completely mistaken about how the problem was actually fixed or if we even had that problem initially :)
What i have done is to set the VCS ROOT of the project to the top level directory ("Root" as per your project structure). And detached the default project vcs root created by teamcity. After this you can create a custom build step by specifying your solution here "Solution file path: *" in build type "Visual Studio (sln)". Now it properly handles library references.
There is a drawback here in that, since the vcs root is at the top level, even unrelated check ins could cause your project to build and that may not be suitable for time consuming builds. Don't have a workaround for that yet.