Solved How Does UAC Decide Which Programs To Run As Administrator

[bej]

Being prompted by UAC for an administrator password for a program like
CoreTemp/64 seems silly since it just monitors Mobo sensors.
Any ideas ?

 

[Brink]

Hello Bej,

That's really up to the program developer, and if he or she has the program to run elevated or not when opened. If not, then no UAC prompt. If so, then you get a UAC prompt.

 

[bej]

Thank you for the answer and your time.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[Alejandro85]

UAC doesn't decides what to elevate and what don't, it's up to the program to mark itself as "admin-only", and that mark is put only by the program developer as Brinks says.
When you try to run one of such programs, Windows ask for elevation, but it's after it looks if the particular program requires it.
The other way to elevate is by explicitly asking to elevate (which is done by right click => run as administrator) to run anything as admin.

Now, monitoring system sensors is not so silly as you may think. To access hardware, Windows needs to access low level devices and that is reserved to admins only (because if it was not, anyone would be able to tamper with the hardware). For reading system sensors, it's logical to require administrator rights, otherwise the program would get an error. Don't worry, it's a legitimate need most likely.

 

[Windows i7 920]

It depends on what hardware and what level of access. For example, you do not need elevation for accessing GPU acceleration, but you would for say changing fan speeds manually. I did manage to at one point using a function from the Win32 API get very detailed hardware info which did not need such elevation.