We have a VB6 application that runs fine at the User level under XP/Vista/7. All transient files are kept under the User file directories - we've made sure that it plays well with UAC and uses the Microsoft recommended file locations, etc. The product stores license information in the registry, but everything is kept under HKEY_Current_User. This "main program" as I'll call it runs without any interventions from UAC even at the User level. Now the problem. We have a small license update program that was written from the same bits as the "main program". The license update takes in a new serial number and writes it to the registry, again under HKEY_Current_User - pretty simple. When this license update program is run however Windows Vista/7 decides for some reason that it needs an administrator credential. This screws up the whole process. Once the admin credential is entered, updates are written to the HKEY_Current_User registry tree of the admin, not the desired User registry tree that we want to update. So the quesiton is, why would Vista/7 determine the license update program needs an administrator credential when the "main program" doesn't? It's not doing anything dramatic. It writes a registry update to HKEY_Current_User just like the "main program" that's unhindered. What can we do to change the license update program to eliminate the Windows-required override?

Did you create a manifest for the new program telling Windows 7 to run it AsInvoker and attach it to the executable? If not, it will claim full rights even if not needed. Best greetings from Germany Olaf

These are VB6 programs so manifests were not created for either one but the "main program" runs without incident. I'm not understanding why we're seeing any difference in behavior.

I am not a programmer, so I cannot explain, why or why not a manifest is needed for your applications. But I managed to create one for a software in our company, which was requesting Admin access before (because it wanted to access a key in HKLM) and attach it to the executable - and this solved the issue. Other than that all you can try is to monitor your system with a tool like Process Monitor to see, if the software wants to access something in registry or file system with higher than needed access level. Best greetings from Germany Olaf