2 Strange UAC quirks

[Arthur Dent]

Okay... so i'm running with UAC enabled now (actually always was, just
changed from no-prompt to prompt)...

Now, i have two funny little quirks to pick on, and maybe someone knows why,
or how to fix these.

1st, just a silly quirk. ... I have two shortcuts - one to Sql Server 2005
Management Console, and one to PL/SQL Developer (an ORACLE developer tool).
Both programs have problems when running in limited mode, and need to be
elevated to function properly.
On both shortcuts, i right-clicked and propertied them. I clicked "Open file
location...". Then i right-clicked on the actual exe files, clicked
properties, and on the "Compatibility" tab i turned on "Run this program as
an administrator".
Now the weird thing. When i click the shortcuts (in the startmenu)... both
of them prompt me to run them as administrator, as expected. HOWEVER --- Sql
Server prompts me with a UAC standard "dialog box" with traditional buttons
of "Continue" and "Cancel", where as plsqldev prompts me with a UAC "task
pane" (those NEW 'dialog boxes' introduced with Vista) with the options of
"Cancel" and "Allow".

Can anyone explain to me why two exes, with UAC-configuration exactly the
same, prompt me with two different interfaces??


2nd, why for some actions, does UAC prompt you for elevation, but for other
actions, it FIRST prompts you and says "You will be prompted for this,
continue?" and then when you say yes, it prompts you AGAIN... with the
_real_ prompt? Why the double-prompt in some instances??


cheers all, and thanks for the info.
- Arthur Dent.

 

[James Matthews]

I have the same issue with Wing IDE for python! Now the reason is becuase if
the exe is signed and microsoft can tell where it comes from then it will
give you the continue or cancel but if it cannot then it will give you the
other one!

 

[Arthur Dent]

Hmm... that kinda makes sense, technically. . Thanks for the info!
Though practically, i am a little baffled why they would do that.
i mean, both warn you, both say it may be dangerous, both want your
permission to proceed, ... i wonder what the logic was for doing two
completely different UIs, as opposed to say, one, with a green vs. a red bar
across the top, or different icons, to make them distinct.

Ah well... the great mysteries that comprise the beast of Windows! LOL
..

still baffled about the second quirk though --- the mysterious
"double-headed prompt"--- shiver m'timbers!!

 

[Jimmy Brush]

Hello,

1- The different UI's do indeed represent the difference between a
signed and unsigned executable.

UAC displays the difference between different types of applications
that request elevation. You will see a different UI between Windows
applications (blue bar), non-windows signed applications (grey bar),
unsigned applications (yellow bar), and untrusted publishers (red
bar).

Why?

This helps to prevent against "hijacking" attacks.

One way a malicious application might attempt to get on your system is
by throwing its own UAC prompt when you are normally expected to see a
UAC prompt for a trusted program.

For example, if you run say the SQL Server Management console, you are
expecting to see a UAC prompt, because you know it will require
permission to run.

A malicious program may somehow find a way to make it so that when it
detects you are going to run this program, it runs its own malicious
program before the intended program can run.

The idea here is that you will accept the UAC prompt for the malicious
program thinking the prompt is for the trusted program that you are
wanting to run.

By having completely differnet UAC prompts for different types of
programs, this threat is minimized, since you are much more likely to
notice, read, and dismiss an unusual UAC prompt for an application, as
opposed to if all UAC prompts looked the same.

2- This happens because there are some instances where a UAC prompt
would not give you enough information as to what is going on for you
to know whether to proceed.

For example, if you are deleting a group of files in Windows Explorer
and you need to provide your consent to delete one of the files in the
group, two things must be displayed to you:

1- which files is cauing the problem
2- then, finally, the UAC prompt

Since the UAC prompt cannot contain application-customizable messages
(this would allow malicious applications to put malicious and
deceiving messages into a uac prompt), the only way to handle these
situations is to display two prompts back to back...

first, the informational prompt *from the application* that tells you
what the application says it is going to do with the elevated power
that it will ask for you in the next uac prompt, and then second, the
real uac prompt *from the system* that allows you to approve or deny
the giving of elevating privileges to the application.

- JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell