How to get log4net to generate log files when running as non-administrator user?

Question

A process running as a non-administrator user does not have rights to write to the program files folder. What is the best way to configure log4net to write to a location that a non-administrator user has rights to?

Ideally there would be:

• A single configuration file or configuration from code would work for all versions of MS Windows supported by .NET.
• Support for MS Windows services
• Support for log4net version 1.2.0.30714 (we have to use this version)

Related questions:

• C# Application can’t read/write to files created by administrator when run in limited user account XP

Answer 1

Why can't you just configure log4net to write to a file in a folder to which you have proper access rights? You do that with a FileAppender:

<appender name="FileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.FileAppender">
    <file value="c:/path/log-file.txt" />
    <appendToFile value="true" />
    <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
        <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline" />
    </layout>
</appender>

The above is taken from here. From the same page:

<appender name="FileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.FileAppender">
    <file value="${TMP}\log-file.txt" />
    <appendToFile value="true" />
    <encoding value="unicodeFFFE" />
    <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
        <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline" />
    </layout>
</appender>

You can use an environmental variable to set the path of the file.