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SCARD_E_NO_DIR
Card files are not host files
SCARD_E_NO_DIR applies to a smart-card file model used by a card profile or middleware. It does not say that a directory on the Windows file system is missing. In ISO 7816-style cards, a hierarchy can contain dedicated files, elementary files, and application-specific objects. A supplied identifier may point to an elementary file, a different application, or an object that the active provider does not expose as a directory.
PC/SC itself is a device-independent transport and resource-management interface. The meaning of a file path above that transport depends on the card profile, the selected application, and the minidriver or middleware that performs the operation. Modern applet-based cards may not expose the same directory semantics as older file-system cards.
What to verify
- Confirm the selected application and the card profile before interpreting identifiers as paths.
- Check whether the API expects a directory object, an elementary file, or a provider-specific alias.
- Do not convert this into a host-file permission fix; inspect the card command trace and middleware mapping instead.
References
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