Absolute path for a mapped drive letter

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I just discovered that VB2010 code will not let you write to a mapped drive letter.

For example if "W" is mapped to some location, the following will not work:

VB

My.Computer.FileSystem.CopyFile("C:\TEST1.TXT", "W:\TEST1.TXT", True)

So, the question is, is there a method to get the absolute path for a mapped drive letter?

Posted 12-Oct-12 6:19am

KevinBrady57

Updated 13-Oct-12 8:26am

v3

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 12-Oct-12 13:18pm

I cannot believe that. Mapped volume is still a file system volume. I would not ever use VB.NET-specific things. How about BCL?
Try System.IO.File.Copy. Better? if not, it could be permission -- run application as administrator to check up. Anyway, you would see it in an exception.
--SA

KevinBrady57 12-Oct-12 13:55pm

I tried using System.IO.File.Copy(src, dst, True). Below is the exact code fragment that I was running:

Dim src As String = "C:\test\contactor.xls"
Dim dst As String = "M:\test\contactor.xls"

Try
System.IO.File.Copy(src, dst, True)

Catch ex As Exception

MessageBox.Show("An error occurred while attempting to copy the file" & vbCrLf & _
"The following error was thrown:" & vbCrLf & ex.Message)
End Try

The error message that is thron says "Could not find part of the path 'M:\test\contactor.xls"

I ran this from within the Visual Studio environment in debug mode. My Visual Studion environment is set-up to "Run as Administrator". My OS is Windows 7.

[no name] 14-Oct-12 8:39am

I think that "W is mapped to on online storage location" is your clue.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 19-Nov-12 17:42pm

Why would you answer your own question? It might be OK, but why your even accept it formally?! This is the real abuse.
Consider I warned you.
--SA

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Dave Kreskowiak · Answer 1 · 2012-10-13T07:09:00

Solution 1

I just discivered that VB2010 code will not let you write to a mapped drive letter.

Utter bullshit. Yes it will. The problem is in your code or the account you're using doesn't have create/write permissions to the path the drive letter is mapped to.

Posted 13-Oct-12 7:09am

Dave Kreskowiak

Comments

KevinBrady57 13-Oct-12 14:24pm

There is not a problem in the code and I do have permission to write to the location. I can manually copy the file from the source to the destination in Windows Explorer or from the command propmpt. Also, I can copy a file if I use the absolute pathname to the destination. It just does not work when I use the drive letter.

Dave Kreskowiak 13-Oct-12 15:25pm

Well, I can tell you that it works because I write tools that do this all the time.
Any mapped drive letter or UNC path can be used.

Dave Kreskowiak 13-Oct-12 15:27pm

What won't work is if the source file or, if the desitination file exists, is locked by another process.

Dave Kreskowiak 13-Oct-12 15:30pm

Oh, BTW, you never said what the exception ir that you get, so it's kind of difficult to tell you where to look.

KevinBrady57 13-Oct-12 15:44pm

In the response to Sergey I did. The exception that gets thrown is "Could not find part of the path".

The file is not locked and does not exist at the destination. As I said, I can successfully do it manually in WE or from the command prompt. I just can't do it from within the program.

Dave Kreskowiak 13-Oct-12 18:42pm

The problem is described by the error message itself. For the destination filepath, the CopyFile method will NOT create any folders specified in the path, but only the file itself. Either the filepath you're giving in the source has a directory specified in it that doesn't exist or one or more folders in the destination path doesn't exist.

The fact that one of these paths is a mapped drive has nothing to do with it.

KevinBrady57 13-Oct-12 22:59pm

See below solution.

Dave Kreskowiak 14-Oct-12 1:12am

That could mean anything. You can't map a drive to an FTP or HTTP address so that's out. Well, not using something built into Windows anyway.

[no name] 14-Oct-12 8:39am

Crap meant to post that another place.