Install as Admin, Run as User

[LeFrog1]

I have NSIS/Unicode script that installs my application.
The installation requires admin privileges, which I get by setting up the privilege level
At the end of the installation, I want to launch my application.

My problem is that the application launches in Admin mode.
I'd like to launch it in user mode, just as if a user double clicked its icon.

Nothing I tried worked. Even setting down the level before launching wouldn't help.

What can I do?

[Anders]

I'd love to hear what you did when you tried "setting down the level" since such a thing is not possible.

The easy solution: Disable the run checkbox on the finish page
The hard solution: Use the UAC plugin

[demiller9]

Anders,

I'd love to hear what you did when you tried "setting down the level" since such a thing is not possible.

There must be some way to reduce a process' privileges. This page http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...px#elevationgl says "Once a task that requires administrative privileges is complete, the program should revert to the least privilege state." That phrase is used several times on the page.

I have not yet found where they tell how to revert to lower privileges.

Don

[Animaether]

Is the reverse even true? I.e. can a process elevate itself mid-run? I was under the impression that it can't; that, at best, you can start a new process with the appropriate privileges.

There's some discussions out there on how to run an app as user from a higher elevation... one using the Task Scheduler ( http://www.codeproject.com/KB/vista-...aElevator.aspx ), one doing crazy things by getting the desktop (which it presumes to be non-elevated) and spawning a new process using that desktop's security tokens ( http://blogs.msdn.com/b/aaron_margos...vated-app.aspx <- http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/s...d-process.aspx ) and another that looks entirely like hieroglyphics after gazing at it for 2 minutes ( http://brandonlive.com/2008/04/27/ge...ou-part-2-how/ ).

But they're all about starting new processes - in which case, the UAC plugin should work quite well within the NSIS context and would be more flexible.

[Anders]

That's right, there are several hacky code samples out there that claim to "ride the elevator back down" but they are all hacks and will fail in certain configurations.