go install on windows: "Access is Denied"

Question

I am new to programming in Go. I would really like your help regarding one of my problems.

I am required to do go install on a file, the executable of which (in Windows) is created in a folder called GOPATH\bin.

Until now, I typically followed the routine: go install <file>.go ---> <file>.exe. However, this time it appears that after the execution of <file>.exe, the exe doesn't finish complete executing for a while and I get the following error when I go install again.

C:\Users\Rahul\Desktop\Compilers\src\cs553s2013\mylexer>go install is_digit.go go install command-line-arguments: open C:\Users\Rahul\Desktop\Compilers\bin\is_ digit.exe: Access is denied.

Answer 1

See http://grokbase.com/t/gg/golang-nuts/135fyje5d9/go-nuts-go-build-access-is-denied-windows-7x64

Absolutely no idea why, but the above suggestion worked. One must enable the "Application Experience" windows service on Windows 7 to solve this issue.

I had this service disabled, and was seeing a similar strange 2-3 minute time of "Permission Denied" on my project's binary (the binary would also disappear after a refresh via alt+F2 of $GOPATH/bin, from a Windows Explorer view of the $GOPATH/bin where Eclipse + Goclipse was building my binary). I noticed that just after execution, and before the binary finally disappeared, it was changed to be owned by some unknown user (in Explorer, it isn't owned by the compiling user, Administrator, or even SYSTEM).

I can only speculate -- perhaps Windows keeps any .exe on the filesystem, if it has exited without some sort of undocumented 'all-OK' status to the windows kernel, assuming it 'crashed', so the Application Experience service can send it as diagnostic data to Microsoft -- and if that service is disabled, the Application Experience service can't finalize whatever handshake NTFS or Explorer is waiting for to allow the file to be overwritten by subsequent compiles. So the golang .exe sits there, with elevated permissions, with some system/undefined user, un-deleteable by Eclipse, until Explorer does something to mark it as definitely dead.