Install applications without administrator privilege?

[zxli]

Hello,

Under Vista with UAC enabled, can I run the application installer with only
power user privilege or just normal user privilege? For some applications, I
don't trust their installers to run with administrator privilege.

Thanks!
zxli

 

[Robert Moir]

Hello,

Under Vista with UAC enabled, can I run the application installer
with only power user privilege or just normal user privilege? For
some applications, I don't trust their installers to run with
administrator privilege.

It's largely down to the installer and what sort of rights it requests and
what sort of rights it actually needs.

If you don't trust an application, my thoughts would be
i - don't install it then!
ii - Virtual PC and VMWare are free and are your friends in this kind of
situation, if you _must_ install something you don't trust.

 

[Zhenxin Li]

What I mean "don't trust" is that some installer will install drivers or
services. But without those drivers or services, the application still works
with some function lost. So I just want to have a taste of the application.

The VMware is not fully ready on Vista. However, I'm trying the VMware 6
beta...

Maybe in the service pack of Vista, MS might add the feature to run the
installer with normal user privilege.

Thanks!

 

[Guest]

It is highly unlikely that MS will add that in a service pack, for a lot of
reasons. The primary one is that it really ought to be up to the developer to
not install stuff you don't want. They do, a lot. I just installed the latest
release of Roxio EZ DVD Creator. I unchecked everything except the burner. It
installed everything. After fiddling with it a bit I found out that
unchecking just removes the shortcuts on the start menu. All the bits are
still installed, the reg keys created, and so on. I'm telling people not to
buy it until Roxio builds a proper installer. That's the better way to fix
the problem.

VMWare 5.5 seems to work reasonably well on Vista. It's not quite there yet,
but it works OK. Virtual PC 2007, if you can get on the beta, works, well, as
well as Virtual PC has always worked. In other words, kinda sluggish, with no
particularly sophisticated features, but reliable in what they have there.

 

[zxli]

I really don't agree that we depend on the developer to write a properly
designed installer. Developers/software companies won't tell the users
everything. They just want to show their features but hide the
implementation. When I try to install a new software either for myself or
for my friends, I just want to give the installer the rights as minimal as
possible even with reduced functions after installation. I assume many end
users don't know virtual machines.