I wrote a little Windows utility that updates a file. It’s safe and harmless; it just modifies a file which is in my user documents folder. I called the utility UpdateMSI. Under Vista with UAC enabled, running this app throws up a dialog:

An unidentified program wants access to your computer

But why? Simple: Vista inspects the name of the executable, notes that it includes the word “update”, and concludes that it needs local administrator rights.

On the face of it, this is silly. First of all, Vista is wrong: my app does not need admin rights. Second, it is infuriating that I am not given any choice in the matter. The UAC dialog says “Cancel” or “Allow”. It does not include the option to run with my normal user rights.

Microsoft did this in an effort to detect setup applications; the word “setup” has the same effect. It will trigger if the word is anywhere in the executable name. I tried it with WorldCupDatePicker.exe – same result.

Surely it would not have been too hard to give the user a say in this? Just a checkbox that says “Let me run this how I want on my computer”? You can disable UAC of course; but I’m not going to do that; overall it’s a good feature.

If you wrote the app, there is a fix. You have to embed a UAC manifest in your application. There are simple instructions here, though note that these explain how to force the UAC prompt, not how to suppress it. If you don’t want to run as admin, modify the line:

<requestedExecutionLevel level=”requireAdministrator”/> 

to read instead:

<requestedExecutionLevel level=”asInvoker”/>

Bottom line: always include a manifest.