Why run Visual Studio as "Run as Administrator"?

Question

What is the difference between using Visual Studio 2012 "Run as Administrator" mode and otherwise? Why do developers prefer using VS in administrator mode? What are the advantages/privileges that one gets? I may be naive enough to ask this one but I am just curious. Thanks.

Answer 1

From MSDN: User Permissions and Visual Studio

You can do nearly everything in the Visual Studio IDE as a normal user, but, you need administrator permissions to complete the following tasks:

• Installing Visual Studio.
• Upgrading from a trial edition of Visual Studio.
• Installing, updating, or removing local Help content.
• Developing solutions for SharePoint 2010.
• Acquiring a developer license for Windows Store.
• Adding classic COM controls to the Toolbox.
• Installing and using add-ins that were written by using classic COM in the IDE.
• Using post-build events that register a component.
• Including a registration step when you build C++ projects.
• Debugging applications that run with elevated permissions.
• Debugging applications that a run under a different user account, such as ASP.NET websites.
• Debugging in Zone for XAML Browser Applications (XBAP).
• Using the emulator to debug cloud service projects for Windows Azure.
• Configuring a firewall for remote debugging.
• Profiling an application.
• Deploying a web application to Internet Information Services (IIS) on a local computer.
• Changing how you participate in the Visual Studio Customer Experience Program.

Answer 2

Windows Vista introduced User Account Control which means that you are running all programs as a standard user even if you are an admin. There are certain things that you in VS that requires you to be running as an admin, not a standard user. For example running Windows Azure emulators, asp.net dev server, etc.

You can run VS as a standard user but sooner or later you will run into issues.