C# UAC woes - getting rid of the dreaded UAC window...

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I'm struggling to get my application to load without having a UAC popup window. My application does require admin access as I'm managing user accounts locally and with the domain on a 2008 server. My application is two parts, a service and a WPF app that controls the service.

I purchased a developer cert from Comodo and am able to sign the application. I also have a .manifest file assigned to the project.

After I build the application I see the shield on it so I know it's working ok. However, when I click on it I get a blue window asking if I want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer.

I believe my issue is around this line:

<requestedexecutionlevel level="requireAdministrator" uiaccess="false" />

If I set the level to asInvoker the UAC window doesn't appear but my app shuts down because of what it needs to operate.

Does anyone know how I can around this issue without disablign UAC?

Posted 11-Jul-12 12:48pm

SEJohnson

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5 solutions

Solution 2

You can add a manifest to the application[^] that identifies the privileges for that program.
Save the file as ApplicationName.exe.manifest.

Posted 11-Jul-12 16:20pm

Abhinav S

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Jul-12 22:37pm

Really? I though that the manifest will simply request some privileges by default, which could cause, in this case, the request through the UAC dialog be default, without specifying the option through the shell, *.lnk or any other way (and the default running without elevated privileges will simply throw exception during run-time at the moment of access violation). If I'm wrong, please explain it to me, perhaps I don't know something. There is a way to switch off the UAC totally or use so called "XP mode", which I would strongly discourage. I think Windows 7 is better than XP, and it provides quote reasonable balance between safety and the ease of use.
--SA

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Jul-12 23:17pm

Abhinav, I tried this thing with manifest and found that it works as I thought, please see above.
I think this makes your answer invalid. Tell me if I'm missing something.
Please see my answer which I put based on my simple experiments.
--SA

Abhinav S 11-Jul-12 23:25pm

If you are running the application with elevated privileges, the user will not see the UAC window.

It is not advisable to turn off the UAC.
Is that what the OP is looking for? That is not recommended.

Dave Kreskowiak 11-Jul-12 23:43pm

He's trying to suppress the UAC dialog without turning off UAC. Depending on how tight UAC is configured, it can't be done.

Solution 4

I found some references to running asInvoker then elevating the privileges from within the application with application.run(). Does anyone have any experience with that in Win7/2008?

Posted 11-Jul-12 16:55pm

SEJohnson

Comments

Dave Kreskowiak 11-Jul-12 23:44pm

Doesn't work. You still get the UAC window when admin priv's are required.

Solution 5

Please see my comments to the answer by Abhinav. I tried to create a manifest and found that it works as I thought.

If you need elevated execution level "requireAdministrator", it will simply request your confirmation via the UAC dialog immediately and by default. If you do not request the elevated privileges but try to perform any operation which actually requires such privileges and do not execute the application with elevated privileges, you will simply get an exception at the moment of the illegal access.

It looks perfectly logical. If you could be able to do some miracle trick to work around UAC confirmation at the level of the application itself, based on the content of application's executable modules, it would totally defeat the purpose of UAC.

However, instructions to "disable UAC for certain applications" circulate. Please see:
http://www.wintuts.com/Disable-UAC-for-certain-applications[^].

I never tried it, but just because I consider UAC as of Windows 7 quite well balanced between ease of use and security.

The radical way to disable UAC is to disable it totally. You can find the related recipes here:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-disable-and-turn-off-uac-in-windows-7/[^].

I would strongly discourage doing so. Anyway, you decide.

—SA

Posted 11-Jul-12 17:14pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Updated 11-Jul-12 17:18pm

v2

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Dave Kreskowiak · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-11T13:40:00

Solution 1

You can't get rid of the UAC window.

When UAC is activated, any admin account will run WITHOUT admin priv's until they are actually needed. When that determination has been made by Windows, the UAC prompt window appears.

There's nothing you can do about it for your application. it's up to the user's admins to turn off UAC or set it to some other level in policy.

Posted 11-Jul-12 13:40pm

Dave Kreskowiak

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 11-Jul-12 22:37pm

How about so called "XP mode"? Or switching UAC off for the whole system? I would strongly discourage it though.
--SA

Dave Kreskowiak 11-Jul-12 23:42pm

Weeeelll, that depends on what his app is doing. XP Mode doesn't provide complete access to the Win7 host, so XP mode may let the app run, but it may also still be crippled by the wall between 7 and XP Mode.

SEJohnson · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-11T16:52:00

I do have a successful manifest being applied. If I change the line in the manifest from requireAdministrator to asInvoker the window goes away. But my app will not run because it requires administrator to do so. BTW Dave, I'm attempting to do more reading on what you have mentioned. Thanks.

C# UAC woes - getting rid of the dreaded UAC window...

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