Same problem here, and same mystification.
As someone coming from a basically single-user perspective who's
looking at PostgresQL mainly for capacity (Microsoft Access 2003 keeps
running out of space even though the tables I'm working with are under
100 MB) and license reasons (I'm uncomfortable with having to
completely release everything I'm doing if I offer my software to a
friend), it's a very strange beast indeed.
I'm kind of guessing that this problem is arising because PostgresQL
starts as a service which lacks the permissions of the human user who's
using the service, so nothing on the desktop, My Documents folder, etc.
is available to PostgresQL.
What's odd is that I created a folder right off of the root, well
outside the protected directories of any user accounts, and it still
couldn't read the file.
I presume the resolution to this show-stopper is obvious to users with
the relevant expertise--in my many years of using and developing
software for Windows and PCs, though, I've never had a need to learn
this server-like stuff.
Anyone out there know the trick? Is it possible to reinstall
PostgresQL using a "Local System Account" in Windows, which allows
Desktop access? Do I need to manually move the CSV data files I'm
trying to COPY FROM into a particular PostgresQL-preferred directory
first? Is there any such folder/directory?
Or am I perhaps barking up the wrong tree here? Maybe PostgresQL is
targetted more exlusively at *nix or server jockies? Maybe the tool is
excellent, but not for my tasks?
