Process.Start("telnet.exe") throws exception

Question

Hi,

I have two applications running on W2k8 R2 x64, one is compiled as 64bit and the other one as 32bit as it has COM dependencies. In both I'm trying to call:

Process p = Process.Start("telnet.exe", string.Format("{0} {1}", address, port));

In the x64 it works perfectly fine, however in the 32bit one I get a System.ComponentModel.Win32Exception ("The system cannot find the file specified")?

Any idea what's going on here? Even if I call

Process.Start(@"C:\Windows\System32\telnet.exe")

I get the same exception?

Thanks,

Tom

Answer 1

Windows Server 2008 does not have a 32 bit telnet.exe client. It only installs a 64bit version in the windows\system32 folder.

Answer 2

\live.sysinternals.com\tools\procmon.exe and/or procexp always has the answer.

Have you looked at the path environment variable in the context of your process? Can you prefix it with the System\SysWow64 path to make it work?

Answer 3

To launch a system32 located 64bit app from a 32bit app (at least on Vista,2k8,7, doesn't work on x64 XP or 2k3) run it from the sysnative directory, i.e. "C:\windows\sysnative\telnet.exe" (alternatively disable Wow64 but that is generally a bad idea).

Answer 4

This drove me crazy... had one project that would find "telnet.exe" without the full path and one that refused to find it (even with the path, or never figured it out). My dev machine is 64-bit.

The problem was the target platform in build.

If it's set to x86 it will not find telnet.

set it to Any CPU it will find telnet.

sometimes you need to set it to x86, this allows your applications to see 32-bit drivers (such as odbc drivers) on 64-bit platforms