impossible to change privilege level of an app ?

It's likely because A Squared updated the version a couple of days ago. Have you tried turning off UAC and attempting the same thing from the Admin account? You may be well served to reinstall and run the installer as admin. For some reason, UAC sees the new version, and doesn't recognize it's admin authority. Mine doesn't even have run as admin checked, and no problems. A Guy

Would running the executable at start-up via the scheduler with "run with highest privileges" work in this case - just an idea as it should take away link to a particular user profile

hackerman1 said:

hi !

a few days ago a-squared began asking for elevated privilege, W7 showing an UAC-prompt everytime a-squared started a scheduled scan or i opened the GUI.

i checked the properties of a2start.exe which is the main file, under compatibility, the privilege level is set to "Run as admin".

i´ve tried to change it by using "Change settings for all users", but when it starts it doesn´t show the "Run as admin" as marked.

i tried to mark it, and then to unmark, but after clicking ok, it´s still marked as "Run as admin".

i switched to my admin-account and checked the file, it is NOT marked !
it´s only marked on my USER-account...

how do i change that ?

Maybe I am missing something here, so I read this 3 times, plus read the part you posted on a2 web site.

Instead of playing with the "Change settings for all users", mark and unmark, why not turn off compatibility mode all together?

Plus you were saying you are running the application from a shortcut, why not delete the shortcut and make a new one??

Maybe some screen shots would help; you know picture is worth a thousand words.

Ok my understanding of this as a non programmer is that we are dealing with two levels of "Privilege" here.

There are the actual file permissions which are part of the NTFS file system. These are fully controllable via the methods we all know, (and love ). This system is the same as it has been since the first days of NT. There is also the "privilege" level that an application needs to manipulate the objects it works with.

The facts are now complicated by the addition of UAC into the mix, and it's use of the dual token system for administrators, plus the fact that the Privilege level required for the running of an application is set in the program code. Some programs will trigger the UAC prompt whatever is set in the compatibility mode settings. This is triggered by the program itself or by the security system when the program attempts to access an object that requires a higher privilege level the the one it is running at.

Without changing the actual code of the application, and the ACL's of all files that may be accessed by the application, all we can do at a user level are workarounds, to prevent the trigger of the UAC prompt, the application must run at the privilege level it requires to access and change the files it uses.

The "Admin Shortcut" mentioned above is probably the most useful for system type applications, as the trigger in the Task Scheduler may be set to system start or user login (Standard or Admin).

This is of course my simplistic understanding of this and any of our accomplished programmers here will be able to explain this much more clearly :)

Hi hackerman1,

What if the issue is a change in your PC's config, not Emisofts'? Check secpol.msc User account control settings, especially two in the screen prints I took below. The pics show the defaults for Windows 7.

I'll have a bit of a think and see what else sprigs to mind, will let you know if I come up with something.

PS: I know you said you haven't changed anything; but please check anyway; besides you may be able to massage your settings here to make it work (balance that with security of course :) ).