Friday, June 8, 2012

"Could not find a part of the path" from MSBuild/CruiseControl.NET

This case turned out to be a no-brainer, but for my own (and others who may need it) later reference, here it is:
Scenario: I had set up a test environment for testing MSBuild targets run from CruiseControl.NET. The target I wanted to run was supposed to do simple file operations like copying and unzipping files to a specific disk letter, which in my test environment happened to be a subst to a folder on my local hard drive. Windows 7 64-bits with UAC (User Account Control) on was used, running CruiseControl.NET elevated to give it necessary privileges.
Problem: When running the MSBuild target itself, things worked like a dream. However, when running the target from CruiseControl.NET, it always grinded to a halt at the first attempt to copy/unzip data to my disk
Cause: This is the no-brainer: Since CruiseControl.NET ran with elevated privileges (i.e. started with "run as an administrator"), it did not see the substed drive I had set up from a non-elevated cmd window.
Solution: Simply start a cmd window elevated (run as administrator) and do the same subst from there, and voilla! - it works.

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