There are some old and/or badly coded programs that won't function correctly unless you right click on it and select "run as administrator" even on a computer that has UAC disabled and you're logged in using an admin account. This problem is very rare and I've only seen it on Win7/Vista My question is: What difference is there in how the program is ran when right clicking and selecting "Run as Administrator" vs just double clicking considering that I'm logged in as admin & UAC is off. Thank You

I'm guessing a bit here so this could be wrong. In Vista and Windows 7 you get two tokens, a standard user and and administrator token. Normally the standard user token is used. If this fails you get a UAC prompt which if OK'd the administrator token is used. With UAC off I believe the user token is still used first, then the administrator token. The procedure is the same except there is no UAC prompt. If you chose Run as administrator the administrator token is always used. The application never sees the user token. If this is wrong someone please correct it. Kerry Brown MS-MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

My question is: What difference is there in how the program is ran when right clicking and selecting "Run as Administrator" vs just double clicking considering that I'm logged in as admin & UAC is off. There is no difference when UAC is off."A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

With UAC off I believe the user token is still used first, then the administrator token. No, you always get the full admin token"A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

No, you always get the full admin token Then how do you explain the situation I stated above? It's rare but some programs will only run properly when you click run as admin. There must be some difference.

Run 'set' at a cmd prompt launched from a 'run as Administrator' shortcut, and see which userprofile is in use. I'm guessing it's not the same one as the standard user, and hence program settings are not the same.

If my first theory is wrong and I'm not convinced that it is then it could be something to do with the virtual file and registry store that comes into play when UAC is enabled/disabled. I've seen weird problems like this if you disable UAC, install a program, then re-enable UAC. The registry settings may or may not be in the virtual store depending on the UAC state when the program was installed. Kerry Brown MS-MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Hi, I think the following information may explain why the program needs to be run with Administrator privilege: How to use User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista http://support.microsoft.com/kb/922708 “When you run a program function or a system function, you may receive a UAC prompt. Most of these programs are legacy programs. Newer versions of the same programs do not trigger UAC. You cannot set UAC to automatically run a program as an administrator without the user being prompted. In Windows Vista, some programs only run correctly if you run them as an administrator. You may be able to run newer versions of the same programs without having to run them as an administrator.” The behavior of UAC disabled: User Account Control in Windows 7 Best Practices http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee679793(WS.10).aspx If UAC is disabled to avoid the elevation prompt, all UAC functionality is disabled. Instead, consider configuring UAC to elevate without prompting. In this case, applications that have been marked as administrator applications, as well as setup applications, will automatically run with the full administrator access token. All other applications will automatically run with the standard user token. The additional functionality of UAC is maintained. Therefore, this issue is also related to how the application was designed. Session 0 Isolation http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/developers/archive/2009/10/01/session-0-isolation.aspx Regards, Sabrina Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.