Opening windows explorer via link

Question

I want to provide a means to open up Windows Explorer (or at least view the directory contents) via an internal webpage I've developed for our business. There are several machines which we share over the internal network. I've provided a text entry field for allow the user to enter the folder path they want to associate with a given row in a DB table and I can store that info off and create the file://///10.10.5.10/Recipes/Pie link to the Pie recipe folder on one of our shared machines.

The link renders correctly on the page and if I copy the link info and paste it into the address bar it will display a navigable page in FireFox or open Windows Explorer if using IE.

However, the link does nothing if you click on it directly on my page. I suspect this might have something to do with security and the brower, right? I've seen a SharePoint page in someone else's system that did work, but I'd guess that has to do with some differences between SharePoint and a webpage in a browser. The work-around of right-clicking the link and copy/pasting it into another tab will work and I might have to live with this, but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or ways to deal with this issue. Perhaps I'm just doing something wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's browser-security related.

can you provide a very simple (static html) example which reproduces the behaviour ? and which browser(s) ? — Yahia, Sep 12 '11 at 13:35
@Yahia, if I build a very simple html with just the link in it, double-click from explorer, it'll open in IE and when I click the link, it asks me to verify if I want to open Windows Explorer. I don't get this behavior with the webpage I did in ASP.NET MVC. — itsmatt, Sep 12 '11 at 13:48
then this is definitely an issue of browser security... in which zone is your ASP.NET app ? — Yahia, Sep 12 '11 at 13:49
"Local intranet", if I'm answering the question I think you're asking. — itsmatt, Sep 12 '11 at 14:12
Have you tried putting it client-/browser-side into "trusted sites" ? — Yahia, Sep 12 '11 at 14:26
@Yahia - didn't see how to do this in FireFox, assuming that I'm following you. — itsmatt, Sep 12 '11 at 23:30
I was on IE... I will have to think more about FireFox then... btw: the answers below are all server-side and would only help IF you are accessing the UNC path from your app directly... — Yahia, Sep 13 '11 at 08:08

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 12 '11 at 13:32

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Most likely it's a permission issue. ASP.net runs under the ASP.net process account. Look for the ASPNET user and apply permissions to the folder for the user in question.

answered Sep 12 '11 at 13:32

JonH

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So this would be a "for each folder" action that I'd need to perform, right? – itsmatt Sep 12 '11 at 23:32

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

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It definitely sounds like a security issue. Try one or both of the following:

Try using impersonation to impersonate a domain user with sufficient priveleges to access explorer on the client's machine
If this is a small intranet application, give the application full trust on the client

Here's a link to a class you can use for impersonation - see my answer:

Invoke or call C# console app from C# web service?

edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

Community

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answered Sep 12 '11 at 15:19

James Johnson

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Thanks for the response James - I'll need to do some reading up on impersonation and how to do this. – itsmatt Sep 12 '11 at 23:35
I'll post a class for impersonating in the morning (almost 2am here). – James Johnson Sep 13 '11 at 05:40

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 16 '11 at 09:15

It seems for me as a pure Internet Explorer setting issue.

First of all I would recommend you better use UNC or DNS names in the path to the server instead of the usage of IP addresses: use file://///myserver/Recipes/Pie or file://///myserver.mydomain.com/Recipes/Pie instead of file://///10.10.5.10/Recipes/Pie.

Second you should better include the file://///myserver, file://///myserver.mydomain.com or even file://///10.10.5.10/ to the "Local intranet" or at least to "Trusted sites" zone:

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