Access to the path ‘C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts’ is denied during installation of a new Identify tenant

Issue

During the installation for the new Identify tenant, user encounters the exception: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path 'C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts' is denied.

Reason

Firstly, we need to check if the user context which runs to create the Identify instance has the permission to the host folder:

• Traverse Folder / Execute File
• List Folder / Read Data
• Read Attributes
• Read Extended Attributes
• Create Files / Write Data
• Read Permissions

Secondly, the antivirus, anti spyware/malware, and firewall software can lock the Windows Hosts file so we can't edit the host file (by maintaining an open file-handle with no write share permissions on this file). You can refer this post: https://www.devside.net/wamp-server/unlock-and-unblock-the-windows-hosts-file to unlock the host file.