How to intercept the access to a file in a .NET Program

Question

I need to intercept when the system tries to access to a file, and do something before it happens.

Answer 1

Interesting question. What kind of access? Read, write, delete, copy?

• If you need to prevent access to a file then the security would be the way. Then you can capture the access and do delegate the task to a higher privileged execution engine. Such as a service running as higher privileged user.

• If you want to stop system level access then you'll need an IFS filter.

• If all access is via your code, then I'd suggest a library that prevent's access.

• And as other people have mentioned, there is the FileSystemWatcher, but I think this post access not before.