I am trying to use eventlogs in my application using C#, so I added the following code
if (!EventLog.SourceExists("SomeName"))
EventLog.CreateEventSource("SomeName", "Application");
The EventLog.SourceExists causes SecurityException that says
"The source was not found, but some or all event logs could not be searched. Inaccessible logs: Security."
I am running as administrator in Windows 7.
Any help would be appriciated.
Yes, it's a permissions issue, but it's actually worse than indicated by the currently accepted answer. There are actually 2 parts.
In order to use SourceExists(), the account that your code is running under must have "Read" permission for the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog key and it must also have "Read" permissions on each of the descendant-keys. The problem is that some of the children of that key don't inherit permissions, and only allow a subset of accounts to read them. E.g. some that I know about:
So you have to also manually change those when they exist.
FYI, for those keys (e.g. "State") where even the Administrator account doesn't have "Full Access" permission, you'll have to use PsExec/PsExec64 to "fix" things. As indicated in this StackOverflow answer, download PsTools. Run this from an elevated command prompt: PsExec64 -i -s regedit.exe and you'll them be able to add the permissions you need to that key.
In order to successfully use CreateEventSource(), the account that your code is running under must have "Full Control" permissions on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog as well as have "Full Control" permissions on the log you're adding the new source to.
It is also important to know that both CreateEventSource() and WriteEntry() call SourceExists() "under the hood". So ultimately, if you want to use the EventLog class in .Net, you have to change permissions in the registry. The account needs "Full Control" on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\EventLog key and "Read" for all children.
Commentary: And I believe all of this mess is because when Microsoft originally designed the EventLog, they decided it was critical that people would be able to log something by "Source" without needing to know what log that "Source" went with.
Good afternoon, The simplest is that you run vs2019 as an administrator, so when debugging or excute the service, it will run correctly without generating the exception.