elevating user to administrator
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From: Phil on 2 Mar 2010 06:09 I use the following code for checking if a user has administrator rights: Public Function IsUserAdministrator() As Boolean Return My.User.IsInRole(ApplicationServices.BuiltInRole.Administrator) End Function This doesn't work on Windows 7 with UAC enabled. There are lots of articles explaining how to mark your manifest to request elevated privileges, but I only have one or two functions within my application that require this. How can I request the elevated privilege from within my code at runtime? TIA Phil.
From: Gregory A. Beamer on 7 Mar 2010 17:04 "Phil" <p> wrote in message news:_qCdnT_SAfxVbBHWnZ2dnUVZ7oednZ2d(a)brightview.co.uk... > I use the following code for checking if a user has administrator rights: > > Public Function IsUserAdministrator() As Boolean > Return > My.User.IsInRole(ApplicationServices.BuiltInRole.Administrator) > End Function > > This doesn't work on Windows 7 with UAC enabled. There are lots of > articles > explaining how to mark your manifest to request elevated privileges, but I > only have one or two functions within my application that require this. > How > can I request the elevated privilege from within my code at runtime? What do you need elevated privilege for? Is this something you can separate out from the main process or do you truly need to get elevated privileges in the main app? Serious questions, as the answers can strongly impact the solution. -- Peace and Grace, Greg Twitter: @gbworld Blog: http://gregorybeamer.spaces.live.com ************************************************ | Think outside the box! | ************************************************
From: Phil on 8 Mar 2010 05:50 > What do you need elevated privilege for? Is this something you can > separate out from the main process or do you truly need to get elevated > privileges in the main app? Serious questions, as the answers can strongly > impact the solution. There are 2 main things. Firstly there are some files that need to be shared amongst all users, and I need to store the location of the folder containing these files in the registry (HKLM). Secondly there are some configuration and administration type functions that shouldn't be available generally to users, so it would be useful, to be able to check if the user is an administrator before offering these options. My best solution at the moment seems to be to try to group all these functions into a separate application. This app can require administratopr privilege, and the main app, can just launch this as required. It seems way over the top though to have to launch a separate application just to check whether a user has the admin rights or not. Unfortunately with UAC there doesn't appear to be any way of determining this without actually elevating the user to administrator. Thanks for you help. Phil.
From: Alex Clark on 8 Mar 2010 13:11
"Phil" <p> wrote in message news:_qCdnT_SAfxVbBHWnZ2dnUVZ7oednZ2d(a)brightview.co.uk... >I use the following code for checking if a user has administrator rights: > > Public Function IsUserAdministrator() As Boolean > Return > My.User.IsInRole(ApplicationServices.BuiltInRole.Administrator) > End Function > > This doesn't work on Windows 7 with UAC enabled. It's not that it doesn't work, you're misinterpreting the result. If you're logged in under an Admin account and you test this without elevation, it is (correctly) informing you that the account under which your process is running do NOT have admin rights. This is because processes are spawned under default (user) privs and not admin privs. If your app had requested and received elevation, this function would return true. >> I only have one or two functions within my application that require this. How can I request the elevated privilege from within my code at runtime? >> Not easily, is the answer. Also, once you've obtained elevation it's even harder to revoke it - i.e. your app remains in an elevated state, which is a worst practice for security. Given that fact, you should look into extracting those functions out of your app and into some kind of secondary maintenance app perhaps, whose manifest demands elevation at runtime. HTH, Alex |