Getting full path for Windows Service

Question

How can I find out the folder where the windows service .exe file is installed dynamically?

Path.GetFullPath(relativePath);

returns a path based on C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory.

However, the XmlDocument.Load(string filename) method appears to be working against relative path inside the directory where the service .exe file is installed to.

Answer 1

Try

System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location

Answer 2

This should give you the path that the executable resides in:

Environment.CurrentDirectory;

If not, you could try:

Directory.GetParent(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location).FullName

A more hacky, but functional way:

Path.GetFullPath("a").TrimEnd('a')

:)

Answer 3

This works for our windows service:

//CommandLine without the first and last two characters
//Path.GetDirectory seems to have some difficulties with these (special chars maybe?)
string cmdLine = Environment.CommandLine.Remove(Environment.CommandLine.Length - 2, 2).Remove(0, 1);
string workDir = Path.GetDirectoryName(cmdLine);

This should give you the absolute path of the executable.

Answer 4

Another version of the above:

string path = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location;
FileInfo fileInfo = new FileInfo(path);
string dir = fileInfo.DirectoryName;

Answer 5

Path.GetDirectoryName(System.Reflection.Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location)

Answer 6

Thank you very much...it works....

Answer 7

Environment.CurrentDirectory returns current directory where program is running. In case of windows service, returns %WINDIR%/system32 path that is where executable will run rather than where executable deployed.