A Quick-Start Guide of Process Mandatory Level Checking and Self-elevation under UAC

Introduction

User Account Control (UAC) is a new security component in Windows Vista and newer operating systems. With UAC fully enabled, interactive administrators normally run with least user privileges. This article and the attached code samples demonstrate these frequently asked coding scenarios related to UAC.

1. How to check if the current process is running as administrator?

2. How to know if the primary access token of the current process belongs to user account that is a member of the local Administrators group, even if it currently is not elevated?

3. How to check if the current process is elevated? The elevation information is available to only Windows Vista and newer operating systems because there was no UAC and “elevation” before Windows Vista.

4. How to get the integrity level of the current process (System/High/Medium/Low/Unknown)? The integrity level information is available to only Windows Vista and newer operating systems because there was no UAC and “integrity level” before Windows Vista.

5. How to show an UAC shield icon on the UI for tasks that requires elevation?

6. How to self-elevate the current process?

7. How to automatically elevate the process when it's started up?

We provide code samples to demonstrate the above how-to scenarios in three programming languages (native VC++, VC#, VB.NET) to meet the needs of different developers.

Language   Sample

VC++       CppUACSelfElevation
VC#         CSUACSelfElevation
VB.NET   VBUACSelfElevation

The code samples are part of Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework, which is a centralized code sample solution from Microsoft. You can download the code from the project’s Download page: http://1code.codeplex.com/releases/.

Background

Microsoft All-In-One Code Framework delineates the framework and skeleton of most Microsoft development techniques (e.g., COM, Data Access, IPC) using typical sample codes in different programming languages (e.g., Visual C#, VB.NET, Visual C++). Each sample is elaborately selected, composed, and documented to demonstrate one frequently-asked, tested or used coding scenario based on Microsoft’s support experience in MSDN newsgroups and forums.
Demo

This is a quick demo of the attached UAC samples.

Step1. After you successfully build the sample project in Visual Studio 2008, you will get an application depending on the programming language that you are using: CppUACSelfElevation.exe / CSUACSelfElevation.exe / VBUACSelfElevation.exe.

Step2. Run the application as a protected administrator on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 system with UAC fully enabled. The application should display the following content on the main dialog. There is a UAC shield icon on the Self-elevate button.

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