OT: windows run as admin what's the difference?

Bob Sneidar bobs at twft.com
Mon Feb 6 12:39:53 EST 2012


Not sure if this is what you are looking for but in vista+ an admin user is not what you would call a SuperUser in unix/linux based systems, and certain operations are reserved now for the superuser. An admin account logs into a session as an administrator. When the UAC is invoked, and proper credentials of an administrator are entered, a SECOND SESSION is created transparently just for that process (and all child processes it spawns). That second session is a super user, but only for the process it was authorized for. 

At least that was how it was explained to me. I disable UAC on all my Vista/Win7 installs because it makes remote administration virtually impossible on some processes, specifically sessions without a terminal. There is no user interface within which to present a UAC prompt so the session silently fails. There are probably ways to do it, but it's too much of a hassle for me and we do not require that level of security. 

Bob


On Feb 6, 2012, at 4:58 AM, Tiemo Hollmann TB wrote:

> I know, that this should be addressed to a windows forum, but I know also,
> that here is so profund knowledge in this list.
> 
> Since Vista there is the "run as admin" option to run a program. My only
> knowledge about this is that the "rights are supposed to be higher" as only
> to be logged on as admin. I didn't find yet anybody who could clearly
> explain to me, WHAT excactly is the difference and when or for what you need
> it. For example my customers have to install the windows quicktime player as
> a requirement for my program. In 95% of cases, they just start the installer
> and everything is fine, but from time to time I get a clean installation of
> the quicktime player only with "run as admin". All cases are standard
> personal vista or win7 computers with only one (admin-) user configured, so
> no lack of rights from users side and antivirus guards switched off. I
> understand that I need the "run as" option, when I am logged on as non
> admin, to get the admin rights. But obviously there still is a difference
> between "logged on as admin" and "logged on as admin + run as admin".  And
> since years I don't understand what different things are going on when
> installing quicktime as "log on + run as admin" and why is it installed
> correctly in all other cases without "run as" Why does it work one time
> without and once only with "run as admin" with the same installer?
> 
> Can anybody shed some light on this system topic? It is so frustrating to
> pick in the dark.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Tiemo
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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