Solved Prevent UAC elevation for a program requesting it

[Alejandro85]

Hi, just found a problem with UAC and programs unnecessarily requesting elevation.

When any program shows an UAC prompt, and I DO NOT want to elevate it, but run anyway (as my current user instead of switching to an admin account), how can I do? Entering my admin user/passwords elevates it and canceling the prompt don't runs the program at all directly.

Any clues how can do that?
Thanks.

 

[Brink]

Hello Alejandro,

If a program requires elevation to be able to run, then there's not any way to run it un-elevated.

As a workaround, you could use the tutorial below to create a shortcut to allow your standard user to run the program elevated without having to enter the password.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/193743-elevated-program-shortcut-create-standard-user.html

Hope this helps some,
Shawn

 

[Alejandro85]

Thanks Shawn for the response, but it's not what I was after.
The tutorial in fact points in the opposite direction (run elevated without prompting). I'm not asking as a matter of "laziness" to not write a password, I have no problem in that. But I want to run a program that asks for elevation without actually elevating.

To clarify, programs some times require admin rights without actually needing them, and they may have problems when they write to user-private locations (as the data goes to the admin user, not the normal user logged-on). I just have found a control panel applet with this flaw when changing my visual settings.

The only workaround I can think of is to completely disable UAC for that, so the program really runs as a normal user.
Thanks anyway! Will tell if I found anything else.

 

[Brink]

Unfortunately, that's something the program developer will need to fix. You should report this issue to them as well so that hopefully they may be able to fix it in the next program version released.

 

[Alejandro85]

Not really good news, but thanks anyway.
It would be really difficult, if at all possible, that MS fixes the bug. With Win8 just released, we would have to wait until Win "9"?? for them to fix.
I will stay with temporarily disabling UAC to as a workaround to a buggy control panel applet. It's not modified so frequently anyway
Thanks for the help.

 

[Brink]

No problem, but you can't blame Microsoft for a program that has a bug in it. That can only be fixed by the program's developer. Microsoft would have nothing to do with that.

 

[Alejandro85]

The bug is within Windows itself, in a built-in control panel applet , in the one where you set the graphical options like mouse shadows and taskbar animation and such.
My comment was only because of that, and even though it's a very punctual error I had some hopes on finding something more general to deal with such errors.

 

[Brink]

I thought you were referring to the program issue in your first post.

 

[mangoh]

The bug is within Windows itself, in a built-in control panel applet.

Hi after reading the thread several times I understand the issue you are having.

Could you provide a screenshot of the exact option you are trying to sort out?

Cheers

 

[Alejandro85]

Hi after reading the thread several times I understand the issue you are having.

Could you provide a screenshot of the exact option you are trying to sort out?

Cheers

Hi, sorry for being a lot latter, I've been busy those days. Attached is the option I was talking about. It's computer's properties => Advanced Options => Performance, configure => Visual effects.

Apparently, all those are affected. They're per-user settings, while all others are system-wide (it's together with the swap file and DEP setup). For example, the mouse shadow, menu fading and other animations are apparently written to HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

Reaching that dialog requires elevation. Problem is that, while running as a standard user, "current user" is actually the elevated admin you enter the password for, not the logged on user. Therefore, it's the other user preferences what are getting changed, not yours. If the dialog weren't elevated, the "current user" would be myself, which is correct, hence my original question.
But clearly, that is a design flaw of Windows. It works correctly when an admin logins or with UAC disabled (my chosen workaround).

 

[Brink]

Alejandro,

Sorry. I completely misunderstood what you were wanting and meant.

You could use the method in step 4 in OPTION ONE of the tutorial below to be able to change the Visual Effects settings from within your standard user account without getting prompted by UAC, and with them actually being applied to the standard user account.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1908-visual-effects-settings-change.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Alejandro85]

Great, thanks!
Tried and managed to change those options by using your link without any "dirty" trick hehe (just for fun actually, I previously changed it the hard way by disabling UAC, change, and re-enable again), but quite handy link.

Funny part is that in control panel, the link has the typical UAC shield, but don't ask elevation anyway, and it even opens the very same dialog, but unelevated (my initial intention). Interesting is that, if this dialog is elevated, the eye-candy options break, and if it's not elevated, the system management there break , so I still think that it's flawed. Lucky there is an easy way of change both.

It would be still interesting to deny elevation for any program as initially wanted to. But maybe another day

Thanks for helping!

 

[tom982]

Great, thanks!
Tried and managed to change those options by using your link without any "dirty" trick hehe (just for fun actually, I previously changed it the hard way by disabling UAC, change, and re-enable again), but quite handy link.

Funny part is that in control panel, the link has the typical UAC shield, but don't ask elevation anyway, and it even opens the very same dialog, but unelevated (my initial intention). Interesting is that, if this dialog is elevated, the eye-candy options break, and if it's not elevated, the system management there break , so I still think that it's flawed. Lucky there is an easy way of change both.

It would be still interesting to deny elevation for any program as initially wanted to. But maybe another day

Thanks for helping!

I wouldn't dare do it for a Windows .exe file, but it's quite possible to do it to another .exe file It's all to do with the dark art of manifests.