UAC: All Information Developers need about the User Account Control (UAC)

Question

Hi and welcome.

Since, so many users always are asking about UAC and they have a lot of different questions, I decided to share information and knowledge from my own experience.

User Account Control (UAC) is a new security feature in Windows Vista™. This new security technology is used for malware execution prevention.

UAC can also cause trouble: yes UAC will cause so called trouble for normal PC users who do NOT understand how to use the UAC technology.

As a developer I want to make my application UAC aware: well this isn’t easy to do if you are a beginner in Microsoft® Development and in developing “windowsapplications”. However what’s great is that I will guide you through and give all information you might need.

Figure A: UAC credential prompt dialog.

Give my application full-rights at launch: by changing the requestExecutionLevel to “requireAdministrator”, your application (*.exe) will be decorated with a shield icon (see picture below) and run through UAC elevation.



<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<asmv1:assembly manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv1="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" xmlns:asmv2="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

  <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" name="MyApplication.app" />

  <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2">

    <security>

      <requestedPrivileges xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">

        <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" />

      </requestedPrivileges>

      <applicationRequestMinimum>

        <PermissionSet class="System.Security.PermissionSet" version="1" Unrestricted="true" ID="Custom" SameSite="site" />

        <defaultAssemblyRequest permissionSetReference="Custom" />

      </applicationRequestMinimum>

    </security>

  </trustInfo>

</asmv1:assembly>

More details:
<!-- UAC Manifest Options

            If you want to change the Windows User Account Control level replace the

            requestedExecutionLevel node with one of the following.

 

        <requestedExecutionLevel  level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" />

        <requestedExecutionLevel  level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false" />

        <requestedExecutionLevel  level="highestAvailable" uiAccess="false" />

 

            If you want to utilize File and Registry Virtualization for backward

            compatibility then delete the requestedExecutionLevel node.

        -->

To execute another process through UAC elevation: you use the ProcessStartInfo class; you also enable UseShellExecute and add “runas” for Verb:

            try

            {

                ProcessStartInfo proc = new ProcessStartInfo();

                proc.UseShellExecute = true;

                proc.WorkingDirectory = @"C:\Windows\System32\";

                proc.FileName = @"C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe";

                proc.Verb = "runas";

 

                Process.Start(proc);

            }

            catch (Exception ex)

            {

                MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);   

            }


I want to add the nice UAC shield icon to my button: this we can easy do by using the API which can be found in the User32.dll:

[DllImport("user32")]
        public static extern UInt32 SendMessage
            (IntPtr hWnd, UInt32 msg, UInt32 wParam, UInt32 lParam);
 
        internal const int Normal = 0x1600; // Normal button.
        internal const int Shield = 0x160C; // UAC shield will be added to the button.

 Important Note: The APIs to decorate a button are the same in Windows® 7 as in Windows Vista™. To launch your app with full permission, as always the edit the  app.manifest the same settings apply for Windows® 7.  

Additional information:

User Account Control Step-by-Step Guide

User Account Control (Windows 7)

How to use User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista
 
Understanding and Configuring User Account Control in Windows Vista

User Account Control for Game Developers

The Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 Developer Story: Windows Vista Application Development Requirements for User Account Control (UAC)

Designing UAC Applications for Windows Vista

Step 3: Redesign for UAC Compatibility (UAC)

Step 4: Redesign Your UI for UAC Compatibility

UAC Blog

Information from CodeFx:
http://cfx.codeplex.com/ 

At CodeFx we have UAC samples that cover the VB & C++ language too.

I hope this information was helpful...

Have a nice day…

Best regards,
Fisnik

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Answer 1

Thanks for releasing the info, It's comprehensive, It's more convenient to find it now.

Awesome :).

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