User right for application data special folder in ASP.NET

Question

I have a ASP.NET MVC application that runs in both IIS 6 and 7. The application requires special right and needs to run in a application pool with a special users that are part of of some specific groups. The application also stores a a lot of settings in a couple of XML files. These files are stored under "Application Data" special folder as they are read by several different components.

I've found that I sometimes need to add the user to the local Administrators group of the machine to get right to write to these XML files. Is that the case or I'm I missing something else? What rights are needed to be able to write to Application Data folder?

Answer 1

The "Application Data" directory is contained within the users "documents and settings" directory. The user should therefore have the necessary access.

You may get a problem if it is the "documents and settings" directory of a different user. You may also get a problem if the user that is the identity og the app pool is not a member of the IIS_WPG group.

In any case it would be better to give the user rights to the directory directly, rather than placing the user in the administrator group.