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Windows Forum / Windows Vista / Administration / April 2007

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Vista 'deciding' a program needs to be run as administrator

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david - 27 Apr 2007 08:03 GMT
Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been going
fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked fine,
but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that something
may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be one-off,
perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every time
I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in compatibility
settings, and nothing's checked.
I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe with
another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will run it
as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute. How
can I resolve this issue?
A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on the
MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717

And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on vista
I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It even
says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.
Michael - 27 Apr 2007 08:36 GMT
David,

try:
Right click the Firefox.exe file,
select properties
select compatibility tab
make sure Privilege Level has the check box cleared for 'Run this program as
an administrator'

If you purchased your Vista from an OEM (not boxed or from Microsoft) they
are responsible for support, not Microsoft.
An OEM supplied ID will not work to obtain support, the error message is
really misleading.

Michael

> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been going
> fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked fine,
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>
> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
david - 27 Apr 2007 10:26 GMT
Hi, thanks for your reply.

The box is cleared, as I stated in my original post. I've also tried setting
the box, pressing apply, and clearing it again, but to no avail.

I'm running Vista preinstalled on an HP laptop, so I guess I should contact
them for support, though the message is indeed misleading. However I'm not
sure how helpful HP support would be with this issue, hence my posting here.

Thanks.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael" <mexxwalraven@verson.net>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.vista.administration_accounts_passwords
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 7:36 PM
Subject: Re: Vista 'deciding' a program needs to be run as administrator

> David,
>
[quoted text clipped - 39 lines]
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
david - 27 Apr 2007 10:37 GMT
A quick registry search solved the problem. If anyone else has this problem
and wants to fix it, go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

Find the key referencing the troublesome executable and delete it.
It would be nice if there was a more elegant way to do this (maybe there is
but I just don't know)

> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been going
> fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked fine,
[quoted text clipped - 22 lines]
>
> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user) - 27 Apr 2007 21:30 GMT
>...when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that something
>may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
>firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be one-off,
>perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every time
>I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in compatibility
>settings, and nothing's checked.

The system that automatically prompts for and applies compatibility
fixups for apps (as happened here) is separate to that presented via
the various shell and Properties UIs.

So you have the shell "Run as admin" setting, and related Properties
setting, and you have the "Admin" checkbox within the Compatability
section of Properties as well.  

But in addition, there's the system-initiated automatic fixer-upper
that you tripped over, and that (by design) has no UI at all (other
than the initial pop-ups).  So to manage the setting, you have some
research ahead... it may be registry, but it may also be something
"outside", such as program manifest files.

I'd like to know more about all this, too   ;-)

>------------ ----- ---- --- -- - -  -    -
  The most accurate diagnostic instrument
   in medicine is the Retrospectoscope
>------------ ----- ---- --- -- - -  -    -
david - 30 Apr 2007 22:08 GMT
As i posted earlier, its HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

>>...when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that
>>something
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>    in medicine is the Retrospectoscope
>>------------ ----- ---- --- -- - -  -    -
 
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