Wsrtjtyk

I am using the System.IO.Directory.GetFiles() function to list all executable files from C:WindowsSystem32 with the following code:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.IO;

namespace MyProgram

{

    class Program

    {

        static void Main(string args)

        {

            string files;

            files = System.IO.Directory.GetFiles(@"C:WindowsSystem32", "*.exe");

        }

    }

}

It lists 300 executables:

But when I list all the files with PowerShell it has 446 executables:

For example: C:WindowsSystem32WinSAT.exe.

It doesn't list this file.

Any idea why it doesn't show me the full list of executable files ? it misses some files.

I guess you are running a 64 bit operating system but try to access this directory running from a C# application compiled to 32 bit. According to Programming Guide for 64-bit Windows / Running 32-bit Applications / File System Redirector
:

The %windir%System32 directory is reserved for 64-bit applications on 64-bit Windows. Most DLL file names were not changed when 64-bit versions of the DLLs were created, so 32-bit versions of the DLLs are stored in a different directory. WOW64 hides this difference by using a file system redirector.

In most cases, whenever a 32-bit application attempts to access %windir%System32, %windir%lastgoodsystem32, or %windir%regedit.exe, the access is redirected to an architecture-specific path.

Original Path                Redirected Path for 32-bit x86 Processes Redirected

%windir%System32            %windir%SysWOW64

%windir%lastgoodsystem32   %windir%lastgoodSysWOW64   

%windir%regedit.exe         %windir%SysWOW64regedit.exe

So you can either compile your application to x64 or access the missing files via the %windir%SysWOW64 folder.

GetFiles will stop when you get an exception. Exception includes access violations. Only way of getting all files is to parse directory by directory using recursion. See code below which writes results to an xml file :

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Xml;

using System.Xml.Linq;

using System.IO;



namespace WriteFileNamesXml

{

    class Program

    {

        const string FILENAME = @"c:temptest.xml";

        const string FOLDER = @"c:temp";

        static XmlWriter writer = null;

        static void Main(string args)

        {

            XmlWriterSettings settings = new XmlWriterSettings();

            settings.Indent = true;



            writer = XmlWriter.Create(FILENAME, settings);

            writer.WriteStartDocument(true);



            DirectoryInfo info = new DirectoryInfo(FOLDER);

            WriteTree(info);



            writer.WriteEndDocument();

            writer.Flush();

            writer.Close();





        }

        static long WriteTree(DirectoryInfo info)

        {

            long size = 0;

            writer.WriteStartElement("Folder");

            try

            {

                writer.WriteAttributeString("name", info.Name);

                writer.WriteAttributeString("numberSubFolders", info.GetDirectories().Count().ToString());

                writer.WriteAttributeString("numberFiles", info.GetFiles().Count().ToString());

                writer.WriteAttributeString("date", info.LastWriteTime.ToString());





                foreach (DirectoryInfo childInfo in info.GetDirectories())

                {

                    size += WriteTree(childInfo);

                }



            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

                string errorMsg = string.Format("Exception Folder : {0}, Error : {1}", info.FullName, ex.Message);

                Console.WriteLine(errorMsg);

                writer.WriteElementString("Error", errorMsg);

            }



            FileInfo fileInfo = null;

            try

            {

                fileInfo = info.GetFiles();

            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

                string errorMsg = string.Format("Exception FileInfo : {0}, Error : {1}", info.FullName, ex.Message);

                Console.WriteLine(errorMsg);

                writer.WriteElementString("Error", errorMsg);

            }



            if (fileInfo != null)

            {

                foreach (FileInfo finfo in fileInfo)

                {

                    try

                    {

                        writer.WriteStartElement("File");

                        writer.WriteAttributeString("name", finfo.Name);

                        writer.WriteAttributeString("size", finfo.Length.ToString());

                        writer.WriteAttributeString("date", info.LastWriteTime.ToString());

                        writer.WriteEndElement();

                        size += finfo.Length;

                    }

                    catch (Exception ex)

                    {

                        string errorMsg = string.Format("Exception File : {0}, Error : {1}", finfo.FullName, ex.Message);

                        Console.WriteLine(errorMsg);

                        writer.WriteElementString("Error", errorMsg);

                    }

                }

            }



            writer.WriteElementString("size", size.ToString());

            writer.WriteEndElement();

            return size;



        }

    }

}