My application needs administrative access and I want it to run without any hassles in Windows 7.
I have the following options
1.Ask the user using the application to turn off UAC. This is a last resort option and would hate to do that.
2.Embed a manifest in the application that says elevate to adminstrator privelege. This will work but it seems that it will bring up a dialog requiring users consent every time a user runs the application.
3. Configure the application to run in Windows XP compatibility mode. This works, but i had to do this using explorer->application properties. if can I do this programmatically during installation time, I would really prefer this option. My question is if there is any way to achieve this.
regards
Ganesh
Try making an application compatibility shim that says your app needs the XP compatibility mode, and distributing it with your app. A shim is a means for administrators to simplify installation of a 3rd party app that needs compatibility settings - it saves them tweaking each PC individually. You can probably roll it into your install program with a little ingenuity.
I've gotten pretty used to dealing with the UAC dialog, running Vista for the last 2 years. If it bugs you, I have to wonder how much experience you have using post-XP OS'es.
As a user I think there are two ways to look at it:
The program inherently requires admin. For these, I very much appreciate the dialog, as I know it means nobody's going to sneakily run that thing in the background on me and modify my system.
The program inherently does not require admin. Most programs only need admin to auto-update themselves (and probably shouldn't need it then). My attitude is that these programs are poorly-designed. Such a program should only invoke AUC if it discovers it needs to update, not every single frigging time I start it up. This is a security issue too, as any buffer overflow someone finds in the entire program puts me at risk.
Localize the need for UAC as much as you possibly can. The best would be to put in a separate executable. (eg: an "updater")
I'm fairly new to deploying desktop applications, so this is the first time I'm building an installer for my software. Currently, the first time I run my software after installing it, it crashes. After that, it runs fine. I'm still in the process of debugging this issue, but I've noticed that a reboot immediately after installing and before running the software seems to fix this crash.
What are common reasons that some installers ask you to reboot before running the software?
Also, why do some installers need to restart before finishing the installation?
Thanks in advance!
Generally, reboots between install and running are because you're replacing system DLLs that are locked. The installer sets up a run-once registry entry that copies the DLLs during boot before they're locked by Windows, and then your application can use the new DLL that you laid down.
In general, this is highly discouraged. There should be no reason anymore for anyone other than Windows itself to need to reboot after install anymore.
I'd suggest going back into a debugger to find out more details about why your application is crashing. Hopefully you have enough tracing available in your code to allow that type of debugging.
In general, a reboot is only required if the installer needs to replace files that are currently in use (and locked) by the OS. Sometimes installers will err on the side of reboot-just-in-case, but this is rarer than it used to be.
We've got a case with an installer I maintain where we need to force a reboot for vista only due to UAC and privilege elevation. Once the setup is complete we need to trigger a program as the current user context, not the elevated Vista context.
In your case, I suspect that some files haven't been correctly registered and you just need to stick with the debugging ;)
I didn't upgrade to Vista until May or so and one of the things I've always heard developers I know in real life say is "first thing you should do is turn off that UAC crap"
Well, I've left it on this whole time for a few reasons. First, just as a failsafe in case I do something idiotic like have a momentary lapse of reason and run an attachment from an email, or in case I view a site which hits some unpatched exploit. Second, as a big of an experiment to see how good or bad it really is.
Finally, I figure that it enforces some better practices. I used to develop every website in Windows directly in inetpub\wwwroot (Visual Studio .NET 2003 more or less required this) but now I develop them elsewhere because the UAC clickfest is a nightmare. I figure this is Microsoft's way of saying "you should really be doing it this way".
By way of another analogy - if you wrote a web app which runs on XP and 2000 just fine but requires 50 different security features of Server 2003 to be turned off, the real solution might be instead to just fix the application such that it doesn't require the security features to be turned off.
But now I'm having to work with an app which is really really NOT designed to be developed outside of inetpub/wwwroot and so UAC is really a nuisance. It's beyond the scope of the project to rectify this. I want to stick to my guns and leave UAC on but I'm also worried about being so autopilot about clicking "Yes" or "Allow" three times every time I need to modify a file.
Am I just being hard headed? Do most developers on Vista leave the UAC on or off? And for the instance described above, is there a better/easier way?
I think it is necessary to leave UAC on on a test machine, so you can see what a real user would see using your app. However, I turn it off on my development machine since I find it distracting, and I trust myself enough to not need it.
(Hopefully your test machine != your dev machine right?)
All this being said, I support UAC, and I am not recommending anyone else turn it off, especially 'common users'.
I code in a standard user account, with UAC turned on.
No I do not close UAC.
Programming C# winform, and web with IIS. Database is progresql. No need to bother with UAC. Some program only require 1 authorization, not a big deal.
I keep UAC on. I find it useful to develop in an environment similar to my end user. That way if I write any code which is trying to read / write from restricted areas I will know about it quicker.
UAC is incredibly annoying at first when you get a new system. The problem is that when you first start out with a new install you have all kinds of programs to set up and settings to tweak. It seems like you see the UAC prompt every 5 minutes.
After a while, two things happen:
You're not setting up as much new stuff.
You've become a little more used to the prompt.
At this point UAC isn't so bad anymore. I have UAC on and I've only seen one or two prompts in the last couple weeks. That's right about perfect: if I see a prompt I wasn't expecting I know to make sure I really want to proceed.
I will argue that the 2nd effect kind of defeats the purpose. What they should do is have UAC disabled by default, but for the first month only. After the first month prompt you to turn UAC on, where the default option for someone who doesn't really read things is to turn it on. Then people aren't annoyed during their setup period, and it's easier to make an informed choice about what you want to do with UAC.
I leave it on
I leave it on, but have it set to automatically elevate privileges when necessary. It's a fine distinction, but a distinction nonetheless.
Services like Microsoft SQL Server runs with administrator privileges. Visual Studio on the other hand does not. Nor do most developer-tools.
I make heavy use of virtual machines to 1) make sure my development environment is safe at all times, and 2) to test out software with the potential of leaving my machine FUBAR. And 3) to limit down-time, restoring my development environment, "in case I do something idiotic like have a momentary lapse of reason and run an attachment from an email" :)
I have been using Windows 2008 in my workstation following the advices on http://www.win2008workstation.com/wordpress/ and it has worked great for me. I don't remember turning off UAC, but certainly I haven't suffered it, so I guess it's turned off.
As others have said, you do need to have test [virtual] machines that are configured as close as possible to the ones your users will have so you won't have any surprises deploying your app.
I think whether you do this or not should depend on the target audience for your application, although I can completely understand people disabling it.
If all your users run Vista with UAC disabled then I think you can get away with turning it off, but this probably isn't realistic--or advisable. At the other end of the spectrum, our applications are used by a vast number of people with every conceivable version and configuration of Windows from Win2k onwards, and obviously including Vista and Server 2008. Since we're an ISV with no control over our users' environments, or over policies governing their privileges and administration, I always leave UAC enabled--even though it annoys me beyond all reason at times--because then I know about any possible problems it might cause for people using our applications sooner rather than later.
Disclaimer: most of my actual coding time is spent on Windows XP, although I have a Vista 64-bit test machine under my desk which I use on a daily basis for testing. Generally I'll use this box around 20 - 30% of the time.
Developing or not developing - was the first thing I did after installing vista. Just seemed an annoying nuisance at best.
Instead of running antivirus to suck away my CPU cycles (I need as many as I can with RDPs and VMs running all the time). I just leave UAC on as a safeguard to double check and make sure only certain things run. It does more than that though, it also restricts programs access to sensitive areas, so a program basically can't trash your system without you allowing it through UAC. I have not had a problem yet and my system runs only what I need it to run, quickly and smoothly.
It's too annoying for me, it gets turned off as soon as I install Vista.
I turn it off as soon as I install the OS. Security by endless modal dialogs is no security at all. Normal users just get used to clicking even more 'OK' buttons after a couple of weeks or so.
EDIT: Wow, down-voted huh? Must be some Microsoft employees around here...Of course it should remain on on a test machine, probably should have mentioned that.
I turn it off on computers that I am using.
When testing, I test in the target environment, which means I may have UAC on or off.
I see no benefit to developing with it on.
I find it extremely annoying and turn it off at all times, I trust myself enough to not have to have fail safes in place. If I screw up and run some dodgy application that's my bad and I'll live with the consequences. Meanwhile I'm not spending 5 minutes of my day clicking though some damn annoying popups.
I have it off, but that's because I trust myself entirely too much. Its funny though, it seems to make the average user (I live in Jourdanton TX, we have a lot of "average users" here in the middle of nowhere) afraid of the control panel, because it causes all these weird prompts to come up and wants their password every 5 minutes if they start to poke around.
That said, I think it depends on your level of expertise with the system. On your dev machine, yes, definitely turn the darn thing off. I haven't gone a day this week without needing to install or update some piece of software, and I don't like having to elevate myself to admin status to have to do that.
What I would really like is the ability to have it elevate for a period of time, or say automatically turn itself back on when I log off, so that I could do an entire session's worth of installing stuff without being bothered, and then be secure again when I was done and (inevitably) had to restart the machine as seems to be common practice with windows installers now.
And all that ranting aside, I think for your test machine, it should definitely be on. Not because I necessarily agree with the feature (any more than I agree that the Administrator account should be disabled permananty, I love that account way too much) but because the User is very likely to have it turned on, and you need to see your program through their eyes. This is especially true if your program is going to require elevation, say to change a setting or modify a certain directory, so that you can prompt your users to accept the UAC warning in your program, which adds an extra layer of comfort to the user I think.
Oh, and as for the one program, let me harp on you just slightly. Shouldn't the program have a define somewhere in the main header files that tells it where its "working directory" is? If this is already the case, then why is it so hard to change that working directory to somewhere else? If its not the case, shame on you, and you should go fix that. ^_^ That would have saved you a lot of trouble.
-Nicholas
I'm running into issues where our build scripts do things like manipulate registry entries or add things to the GAC. We're trying to get away from this stuff but until we do it's there and requires privilege escalation. So the build scripts get run from an Administrator command window. The problem comes in when I open Visual Studio 2008 and try to build part of the application - I can't as a normal user because the output files can't be overwritten because the build in the Admin console produced the same files at a higher privilege level. It's causing me a lot of frustration and I'm thinking the best way is to turn UAC off for now but I'm very reluctant to do so.
Because I've got post-build scripts to copy executables into the Program Files directory for testing I run Visual Studio with elevated privileges.
One tip I've found that makes life easier, is that to quickly start a command prompt with elevated privileges you can:
press Window Key
type "cmd"
Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Left cursor key (with right pinky) to move to "Continue" button on UAC dialog
Enter
I always keep one open for launching my IDE and running build scripts.
The only downside I've found is that elevated windows don't interact with some of my window tweaking software like KatMouse and Switcher.
No, but I do change some settings:
Do not prompt for elevation if not in the administrators group.
Evelvate automatically if you are the [machine]\administrator
I do not put myself in the administrators group.
Juts a plain old user, with no elevation prompts.
Use Run As if developing/debugging web apps with development server
I code with UAC off. I found annoying to see all those popups when i open visual studio or star uml, or just want to change a setting in my machine. I have always installed a good internet security suite that keeped me "virus free" on my machine for long years and i don't see the point to have always an "are you sure" prompt on every task i do. I agree with Ed because everyone click ok.
Exemple : install a firewall to some member of your family. When they will be prompted if app XYZ can connect to the internet, they will click yes. They will not make the distinction between a good app and a spyware/virus. It's the same thing with UAC.
I leave UAC on, but have VS set to always run as admin. The only real reason why I do that though is that I mostly work on software that requires admin permissions to run anyway. (And yes, I know that should be the minority, but my app happens to be one of those -- it's a soft-realtime hardware controller.)
For general purpose apps, you must at least test with UAC enabled; while you could do that on a separate machine, it's easier to test on your dev machine. And the prompt isn't that much of an imposition, especially if you disable the "secure desktop" option (which reacts very slowly with most graphics cards when enabled).
If you stay on Vista, turn off UAC and rely on Microsoft Security Essentials' real-time monitor to intercept anything that wants to alter your system. Or, upgrade to Win7, where you can leave UAC on and control the levels at which you want UAC to notify and interrupt the execution.
EDIT: It's very easy to exploit a Windows computer anyway, so what's the sense in having UAC turned on, if it really doesn't guarantee protection?
We are trying to automate a build of one of our products which includes a step where it packages some things with WISE. At one point WISE pops up a window with a progress bar on it to show how it is doing. If one is connected to the machine with remote desktop the build works fine but if one is not connected the build stalls until you reconnect at which point the window opens and the build progresses. Does anybody know of a work around for this? Some way of tricking windows into believing that there is a desktop session connected?
Sorry for yet another guess - but I had a problem with a wise installer locking up. It was because WISE had installed a "font" and so broadcast a "system config changed" message. My DELL had a Dell utility running on it that had a message queue it wasn't reading from so the broadcast locked up the installer. WISE made a new version for me that did an async broadcast instead to fix the problem. It's possible that there's an app on your system that doesn't bother reading its msg queue when there is no desktop.
Finally the answer: check you have the latest patches for your WISE installer. In particular, look for patches that fix lock-ups related to the windowing system.
What version are you using? Looking at the feature set, it looks like their "std" version might be limited. Perhaps unattended installs require the Pro version?
That's just a guess....
Regardless, I wonder whether you could simply code up an auto-run task for the box that calls
CreateDesktop to pretend there's an interactive login?
I found a CreateDesktop example
that's about desktop switching, and an example about unattended installs -- you might be able to use one of them as a starting point to "fake out" WISE :)
It might be worth a try...