a program needs your permission (UAC)
Is there anyway to get the UAC to stop asking about a program i want to run except disabling UAC or elevating without promting? It would be really nice ifthe home usercould somehow tell UAC that this program is ok and you don't have to promt anymore. Like a little checkbox saying "This program is ok." when promted in the regular fashion.
August 31st, 2008 2:23am

Manqs wrote: Is there anyway to get the UAC to stop asking about a program i want to run except disabling UAC or elevating without promting? It would be really nice ifthe home usercould somehow tell UAC that this program is ok and you don't have to promt anymore. Like a little checkbox saying "This program is ok." when promted in the regular fashion. Hi Manqs Yes, you can do this. You can create a shortcut to a program or command that runs with Administrator privileges and bypasses the UACprompt. This is accomplished by creating a Scheduled Task that runs with highest privileges. This works, because you must have Admin privileges to create the scheduled task. There are 2 steps to this process. 1. Open Task Scheduler. In the Actions Pane, click Create Task.On the General tab, enter a name for the task. (A one word name, without spaces works best)Place a check mark in the 'Run with highest privileges' option.On the Actions tab, enter the full path of the program/command you want to run. On the Settings tab, be sure the 'Allow Task to be run on demand' option is selected.Click OK to create the task. 2. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Users\your name\Documents.In the Documents folder, right click and select New/Shortcut.In the 'Location Box' type the following: schtasks /run /tn taskname (Where 'taskname' is the name you gave to the scheduled task) Click Next and type a name for the shortcut. Click Finish.You can now move this shortcut to a convenient location, Pin it to the Start Menu, Add it to the Quick Launch,or Copy/Paste the shortcut anywhere you wish. When you open the shortcut the program will start in administrator mode without the UAC prompt. Many thanks to Ed Bott for documenting this solution. Fixing Windows Vista, Part 2: Taming UAC | Ed Botts Microsoft Report | ZDNet.com: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=436&page=4 If this post helps to resolve your issue, click the Mark as Answer button at the top of this message.By marking a post as Answered, you help others find the answer faster. Ronnie Vernon Microsoft MVP Windows Desktop Experience
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 31st, 2008 1:19pm

Hello Ronnie This solution sounds perfect for me. I do have a question and would like to refer to a portion of your response presented just below: "You can now move this shortcut to a convenient location, Pin it to the Start Menu, Add it to the Quick Launch,or Copy/Paste the shortcut anywhere you wish. When you open the shortcut the program will start in administrator mode without the UAC prompt." My question is: Can I paste the shortcutinside the Start Menu of the Guest Account? I am the Administrator of a computer running Vista Home Premium. There is only one Admin Account, mine, and the other users are on the Guest Account because there is a fairly high turnover rate in users which changes every 3 months or so. None of the users of the Guest Account arepermanent users of the computer. However, most of the current Guest Account users like to play a certain game Idownloaded for them. They are able to play the game fine without being asked for Admin credentials, but,at least once per week the program wants to update itself. When they attempt to open the gamethey are then asked for the Admin password so the program can update. When this happens they cannot even play the game until my Admin password gets entered. I am frequently unavailable during these times. It would be great if I could follow the instructions you provided while logged into my Admin Account,paste the shortcut to the Start Menu of the Guest Account, log out, and then log the computer back into the Guest Account. Then, the users could just open the shortcut to let the program update when it needs to and they can play the game when I am unavailable. Do you know if this procedure will work for my situation here? Thank you in advance for your input, Diversemanx
September 20th, 2008 2:29pm

Hi Unfortunately, this procedure does not help someone with a Standard User accountor a Guest user account bypass the UAC prompt. They would still need to have access to administrator privileges to use the shortcut, especially if an update was involved. This is simply a way for an administrator to bypass the UAC prompt for aparticular program, that requires elevation, andthat they use often. Regards, If this post helps to resolve your issue, click the Mark as Answer or Helpful button at the top of this message.By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster. Ronnie Vernon Microsoft MVP Windows Desktop Experience
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 20th, 2008 6:21pm

Hello again Ronnie Thank you for your response. I sort of had a "feeling" this procedure might not work forthe scenario described in my previous post and wanted to get the advice from a professional with more expertise than myself. I will definitely take note of the procedure for my own use if and when the situation presents itself. So far, I have not had any negative issues at all related to the UAC prompt. Ibelieve the added security provided by the User Account Control UAC has many benefits in my situation. Virtually all of the other users of the computer I manage have little to no computer experience. The last computer being used in this setting was an older one running Windows ME. I basically had to very frequently troubleshoot configuration and performance issues. I have not had to troubleshoot any of these issues with Vista Home Premium. The UAC prompt has been successful in keeping these users from inadvertently compromising the system. I will be keeping the UAC enabled for this computer. Thank you, Diversemanx
September 21st, 2008 1:03pm

Hi Your very welcome. Good luck in your endeavors. Regards, Ronnie Vernon Microsoft MVP Windows Desktop Experience
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
September 21st, 2008 2:17pm

HelloWill this ever be "fixed" properly? Just a checkbox "Always Allow" right? Its a complete pain in the ____ to do this procedure everytime I refomat my hard disk, and everytime I install all my apps again, I have to individually run through this process for every one of my apps after every reformat.Steve.
December 23rd, 2008 6:41pm

Steve This will not change in Vista, but they will be making some changes to the UAC component in the next version of Windows. An Always Allow button has been a much requested addition to UAC since Vista was first introduced. The problem is that this would completely defeat what UAC was intended to do? The whole point of UAC is to make sure that a program is under the control of the logged on user of the system. Most Virus and other malicous infections have the capability to piggyback onto a legitimate process that is starting and requesting Administrator privileges on the system, UAC prevents this by notifying the user what program is starting and preventing any other process from piggybacking onto the legitimate process.If you could generate a white list of allowed programs, there would be nothing to prevent a malicous program from attaching itself to one of thoseprograms and infecting the computer. Most people have forgotten aboutthe overwhelming vulnerability ofprevious versions of Windows, even though thisgenerated the most complaints, by far. New components like UAC, DEP and others have solved these vulnerabilities to a large extent.Hope this helps. Ronnie Vernon MVP
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
December 26th, 2008 4:40pm

Ronnie,Ok, I admit, UAC is better than no UAC, which is why I havent turned it off, and I've assigned Scheduled Tasks for the things I really know are safe like Visual Studio and WinZip etc. And I suppose I can see how an "Always Allow" could open a hijack to UAC.If you can help though, I'm stuck on one final issue on UAC. Its regarding Shell extensions, more specifically with WinZip.In XP (and in Vista) I can browse ZIP files inside Explorer as if they are virtrual folders within the real folder the zip file exists. But if I want to modify the contents of the zip file (eg to update an exe file inside the zip with a rebuilt version of it), in XP i used to just have to drag the new file into the virtual Zip folder in explorer and it would update the zip file itself.(By issuing something like "C:\WINZIP\WINZIP32.exe -% -x -FILE....&TMPFILE..." as a shell extension)I've assigned WinZip a scheduled task and dropped that link on the desktop, but that only allows me to run WinZip directly from the desktop, not have it launched from a shell extension. What this leads to is basically a breakdown of the shell extensions for updatingzip filesand i get the "740 - The requested operation requires elevation" message, and I'm no longer able to update Zip files from the shell extensions and drag and drop.This was a fairly common operation in my development packaging process.Thanks in advance. If you can help on this issue, I'll never look back with fond memories to XP ever again.Steve
January 7th, 2009 12:51pm

Hi SteveAre you using the latest version (12.0)of WinZip?This version seems to work OK without displaying any elevation prompts. I can openthe programon the Desktop or use the drag and drop feature in the users foldersin Windows Explorer.Hope this helps. Ronnie Vernon MVP
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 7th, 2009 3:01pm

Hi Ronnie,Whenever I've double-click a ZIP file from Explorer and allow UAC to open WinZip, it does load the Zip file into WinZip itself, but I cannot drag any files from explorer into the WinZip application (the mouse cursor turns into a "no-go" icon when hovering above the WinZip window).When I right click any file in explorer and select "WinZip->Add To Zip File..." i get the exact message - Error(740): The requested operatioin requires elevation. ("C\WinZip\winzip32.exe" -* /addX&c:\Users\Steve\AppData\Temp\wzs32E3.tmp)Btw, I also have WinRAR installed, and I can perform WinRAR shell extension with that no problem, and I can also double click RAR files and open them without a UAC prompt. (I've set file assocations up properly so that RAR files open with WinRAR and ZIP Files open with WinZip).Right, well after writing all the aboveout....I checked the properities of WinZip.exe itself, and its set to Run as Admin! Whereas WinRar.EXEis not. This is what causes the shell extensions to fail, drag and drop to break and my constant UAC prompts! As soon as I uncheck "Run as Admin" on WinZip32.exe all is well again.So problem is solved and I'm a bit more accustomed to Vista's UAC now thanks. But I'm a bit puzzled why for you, you didnt have to turn off Run As Admin on WinZip32.exe or why the WinZip installation set it on for me and not for you. No big deal though, thanks for the first reply (About scheduled tasks), its a very handy trick.Steve.
January 8th, 2009 1:38pm

Perhaps a simplistic approach (and I'm sure there must be a fault to it, as a result), but following the method I used withmy prior addition of some useful small programs on a work computer where I wanted to keep my software separate from my company's, I simply created a "Personal Program Files" folder on my C drive and store my additional programs there--no UAC pop-up issue and simple to do. The folder appears adjacent to the regular Programs folders, and so is easily remembered in the future. This avoids Task Scheduler complexities and issues, including remembering that procedure as well as needing to replace the Task Scheduler icon in shortcuts.
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 6th, 2009 9:51pm

See http://kb.winzip.com/kb/entry/243 for a solution.
March 6th, 2012 10:07am

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics