How To: Use Vista's UAC Feature To Avoid Always Requiring Admin Rights | jmazner

jmazner

Details on CoCreateInstanceAsAdmin and how to use the elevate moniker are here. It boils down to this:

Elevation:Administrator!new:{guid}

jmazner

Here's the snippet from the RGS files to register the COM component correctly for elevation:

HKCR
{
  NoRemove CLSID
{
  ForceRemove {8E29BED3-2E02-49DC-A9B7-3A5984BCD95F} = s 'CanElevateWork Class'
  {
   ProgID = s 'CanElevate.CanElevateWork.1'
   VersionIndependentProgID = s 'CanElevate.CanElevateWork'
   ForceRemove 'Programmable'
   InprocServer32 = s '%MODULE%'
   {
    val ThreadingModel = s 'Apartment'
   }
   val AppID = s '%APPID%'
   'TypeLib' = s '{25CA48AF-1D18-4A9F-9749-7354C41CDCEC}'
   Elevation
   {
       val Enabled = d 1
   }
   val LocalizedString = s '@%MODULE%,-101'
  }
}
}

HKCR
{
NoRemove AppID
{
  '%APPID%' = s 'CanElevate'
  {
      val DllSurrogate = s ''
  }
  'CanElevate.DLL'
  {
   val AppID = s '%APPID%'
  }
}
}

larry_lai

Hi jmazner,

Can we have your sample codes for reference?

Thanks,
Larry

djmitchella

Not directly related to the content, but I'm wondering how you made that recording? The video has footage of the UAC desktop -- isn't that meant to be secure and inaccessible to normal applications like screen grabbers -- did you point a camera at your monitor, or is there some other way for apps to "see" that they're at the UAC desktop?

I know you can try things like OpenInputDesktop(0,FALSE,0) and watch for failure to know if the secure desktop is up, but that's the opposite, that's _failing_ to get the desktop, not capturing images of it..

sintaxasn

Hi Guys,
I'm having a really tough time trying to implement the elevated COM method under VB.NET. I'm not an API guru, but need to be able to migrate some of my VB.NET utils for my company to use UAC.

I've managed to create my own custom control which implements the Shield icon via a SendMessage API call, but the actual UAC part, I'm really stuck on.

I've segmented out my Admin functions into COM classes, but am having a lot of difficulty figuring out how to use CoCreateAdminAsInstance through VB.NET.

There doesn't seem to be any sample code available for VB.NET so any help in explaining this to me, or assisting in any way would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance, Dan.

eak

The computer may restart when you add a manifest that has the Windows Vista extension to an .exe file or to a .dll file in Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)

http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=921337

Resolution
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=463884&SiteID=1

robgarrett

Check out this managed wrapper -:

http://robgarrett.com/cs/blogs/software/archive/2007/02/12/net-wrapper-for-com-elevation.aspx

Encapsulates all the hard stuff for non-C++ and non-COM developers.

VincentKao

Hi jmazner,

Could I have your sample codes for reference?

Thank you,

Vincent Kao

SugarDaddy

Hello,

That is an excellent video. Your help is very much appreciated. I noticed you have a video showing how to include the manifest with managed applications...

When I launch a "requireAdministrator" .NET app, it gives the ugly "Allow/Cancel" prompt instead of the nice "Continue/Cancel" prompt -- the consent prompt. But when I sign the file with an authenticode signature, it uses the consent prompt. However, I don't know how to specify the application name like you do in this COM elevation demo. Basically what I'm asking is how do you set the application / assembly name in a Managed app. I've tried the <assemblyIdentity> element in the uac.manifest, but it seems to have no effect. Any help? Thanks.