The system cannot find the file specified Exception in Process Start (tscon.exe)

Question

I am getting \"The system cannot find the file specified Exception\" in Process.Start on tscon

Working:

Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo(@\"c:\\Win         


        

Answer 1

While it looks like you found a workaround long ago, I have an explanation as to why the issue occurs and an arguably better solution. I ran into the same issue with shadow.exe.

If you watch with Process Monitor, you'll see that it's actually looking for the file in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ instead of C:\Windows\system32\ due to File System Redirection and your program being a 32-bit process.

The workaround is to compile for x64 instead of Any CPU or use P/Invoke to temporarily suspect and re-enable File System Redirection with the Wow64DisableWow64FsRedirection and Wow64RevertWow64FsRedirection Win API functions.

internal static class NativeMethods
{
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool Wow64DisableWow64FsRedirection(ref IntPtr ptr);

    [DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern bool Wow64RevertWow64FsRedirection(IntPtr ptr);
}

////////////////

IntPtr wow64backup = IntPtr.Zero;
if (!Environment.Is64BitProcess && Environment.Is64BitOperatingSystem)
{                            
    NativeMethods.Wow64DisableWow64FsRedirection(ref wow64backup);
}

Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo(@"c:\Windows\System32\tscon.exe", @"0 /dest:console"))

if (!Environment.Is64BitProcess && Environment.Is64BitOperatingSystem)
{
    NativeMethods.Wow64RevertWow64FsRedirection(wow64backup);
}
                        }