SHGetKnownFolderPath fails with E_ACCESSDENIED - c++

Question

I have a program that calls SHGetKnownFolderPath with FOLDERID_RoamingAppData.
If I start the program by double clicking it, it works ok.
If the program is started by a windows service (in the current user context), the function fails with error E_ACCESSDENIED (-2147024891).
This is what my code looks like:
Tstring EasyGetFolderPath(REFKNOWNFOLDERID folderid)
{
Tstring sPath = _T("");
PWSTR pszPath = NULL;
HRESULT hr = SHGetKnownFolderPath(folderid, 0, NULL, &pszPath);
if (hr == S_OK && pszPath)
{
sPath = WStringToTCHAR(pszPath);
CoTaskMemFree(pszPath);
return sPath;
}
else
{
throw HResultException(hr, _T("SHGetKnownFolderPath failed"));
}
}
Tstring EasyGetUsrAppDataPath()
{
return EasyGetFolderPath(FOLDERID_RoamingAppData);
}
static TCHAR* WStringToTCHAR(const std::wstring &s)
{
#ifdef UNICODE
TCHAR *sT = new TCHAR[s.length() + 1];
_tcscpy_s(sT, s.length() + 1, s.c_str());
return sT;
#else
std::string str = WStringToString(s);
TCHAR *sT = new TCHAR[str.length()+1];
_tcscpy_s(sT, str.length() + 1, str.c_str());
return sT;
#endif // UNICODE
}
static std::string WStringToString(const std::wstring& s, bool method = true)
{
std::string temp;
temp.assign(s.begin(), s.end());
return temp;
}
This is the code that starts the process in the current user context:
(I've removed the error handling in order to reduce verbosity)
void StartProcessInCurrentUserContext(const Tstring &sExeName, const Tstringarr &lstParams, const Tstring &sWorkingDir)
{
...
EnableDebugPrivilege();
errCode = GetProcessByName(_T("explorer.exe"), hProcess);
if (!OpenProcessToken(hProcess, TOKEN_ALL_ACCESS, &hToken))
{
...
}
if (hProcess)
CloseHandle(hProcess);
Tstring sCmdLine = ...;
...
// Create the child process.
bSuccess = CreateProcessAsUser(hToken, NULL,
(LPTSTR)sCmdLine.c_str(), // command line
NULL, // process security attributes
NULL, // primary thread security attributes
TRUE, // handles are inherited
0, // creation flags
NULL, // use parent's environment
sWorkingDir.length() > 0 ? (LPCTSTR)sWorkingDir.c_str() : NULL,
&siStartInfo, // STARTUPINFO pointer
&piProcInfo); // receives PROCESS_INFORMATION
CloseHandle(hToken);
...
}
Does anyone know what the problem might be?

Answer 1

The documentation for SHGetKnownFolderPath says in the discussion of the hToken parameter:
In addition to passing the user's hToken, the registry hive of that specific user must be mounted.
The documentation for CreateProcessAsUser says
CreateProcessAsUser does not load the specified user's profile into the HKEY_USERS registry key.
These two paragraphs together explain why your code is not working. Fortunately, the next sentence in the documentation for CreateProcessAsUser explains what you need to do:
Therefore, to access the information in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key, you must load the user's profile information into HKEY_USERS with the LoadUserProfile function before calling CreateProcessAsUser. Be sure to call UnloadUserProfile after the new process exits.