Question on running priviledge?

[Polaris]

Hi Experts:

I have a few questions on user privilege under Vista:

(1) If I login Vista as an admin and then start to run some applications
normally, are those apps running with admin privilege? Or I have to
right-click the app and then fire it up through "Run as administrator"?

(2) Suppose a batch file starts 3 apps, if I run the batch file using the
"Run as administrator" option, will the 3 applications be running with admin
privilege?

Thanks in Advance!
Polaris

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

The answer to (1) is no. You are running as a standard user with admin
rights when needed. If a program needs admin priviledges you will still be
prompted for consent. A standard user without admin rights would also be
prompted but for an admin password.

 

[Guest]

(2) Suppose a batch file starts 3 apps, if I run the batch file using the

"Run as administrator" option, will the 3 applications be running with admin
privilege?

Yes. Any processes spawned by an admin process will automatically inherit
the admin privileges, without prompting.

- JB

 

[David Hearn]

Just to clarify a little.

If a program *which is UAC aware* needs admin privileges you will still
be prompted for consent. If a non UAC aware program (ie. legacy, not
updated for Vista) needs admin privileges for some function calls, those
calls will fail, probably crashing the application.

UAC dialogs and auth requests are not free.

D

 

[David Hearn]

Doh, just to clarify further! With regard to non UAC aware apps, some
admin functions regarding writing to Program File or HKLM will actually
work if Virtualisation is enabled, but the data will be written to the
user-specific virtual stores.

To further confuse matters, if an application *is* UAC aware, then
Virtualisation is disabled by the OS and if that app did not specify in
its manifest that it requires Admin privs yet tries to do admin
functions (including writing to Program Files/HKLM) then it will also
fail and possibly crash.

D