What is DisableUAC.exe doing?

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What is DisableUAC.exe doing?
 
Vladimir Nikolov




Posts: 44
 Joined: 2009-03-20
Hi,
What is DisableUAC.exe doing to the MSI?
Regards
Vlad
Posted 28 Jul, 2009 12:33:07 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 19177
 Joined: 2006-05-11
Hello Vlad,

Terribly sorry for the delay; it appeared that I've missed at least several forum posts.

"DisableUAC.exe /On" removes the "Everyone"/"Just for me" controls when you are on the Select Installation Folder page. Removing DisableUAC.exe from the PostBuildEvent property of your setup project (and re-building it) shows the controls.

"DisableUAC.exe /Off" removes the "Everyone"/"Just for me" controls AND also prevents the UAC Allow/Cancel prompt from being shown for the user that runs the .MSI (not setup.exe) on Vista, Windows 2008 Server and Windows 7.

The consequences are as follows:
- if a standard user runs an .MSI processed with "DisableUAC.exe /On" (or without DisableUAC), after filling in all the user interface dialogs and clicking Next, UAC prompts the user for an administrator login/password. If the user enters these, the installation process starts for the administrator user, not for the user running the .MSI.
- if an admin runs an .MSI processed with "DisableUAC.exe /On" (or without DisableUAC), after filling in all the user interface dialogs and clicking Next, UAC shows the Cancel/Allow prompt. If the user clicks Allow, the installation continues for the administrator user.
- if any user runs an .MSI processed with "DisableUAC.exe /Off", the UAC doesn't show any prompts. Because an administrator on UAC-systems normally works with standard user permissions (and gets administrator permissions after the prompt), the installation process continues for the current user (as a standard user). If the user has no access rights to some resource, an error message is shown.

Conclusion: "DisableUAC.exe /Off" is designed for installing add-ins by standard users, without administrator help.

I've described this and understood that the name of the executable confuses you. We will consider renaming it.


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 31 Jul, 2009 12:34:49 Top