Windows – Does “Run as administator” really do anything if UAC is off

Services, just like about every Windows object, have an ACL associated with it, which can be modified to give you access.

As far as I know, there is no official UI for managing service ACLs, so you're left with two options:

1. Download Process Explorer. Start your service (ProcExp only shows running services). In ProcExp, double-click on the process for the Service (or right-click and click Properties). Click the "Services" tab. Typically your program is run by a particular user - Add that user. Hit Advanced. The permissions you can manage include stop/start of this Service and sending custom-defined commands to it.

   Process Hacker is similar, but can manage stopped services as well.

2. sc sdshow, learn the ACE syntax and access rights, edit the security descriptor, pass it back to sc sdset.

What you need to do is embed an application manifest into the EXE.

1. Save the following as a text file called App.exe.manifest:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
   <assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
       <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
           <security>
               <requestedPrivileges>
                   <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator" uiAccess="false"/>
               </requestedPrivileges>
           </security>
       </trustInfo>
   </assembly>
   

2. Download the Windows SDK.

3. Inside you'll find mt.exe i.e. the Manifest Tool. Invoke it as follows:

   mt.exe -manifest "App.exe.manifest" -outputresource:"App.exe";#1
   

4. If there are no errors you're done. You can delete the manifest file and distribute just the EXE. Running it should make it automatically request admin access every time.

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