CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++windowsuac
Solx
Solx

Reputation: 5111

Is there a way an NON-elevated process can copy a file to a protected directory?

I am fine with it asking the user for elevation when it is ready to copy a file. The program that needs to do the copying cannot run elevated (it looses many important environment variables and I am not in a position to change the way it is started). My fallback will be to have it spawn a process with elevation that actually does the file copy, but I would prefer not to have to add yet another exe to what I am working on.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 292

Answers (3)

Remy Lebeau
Remy Lebeau

Reputation: 595320

Use the COM Elevation Moniker to instantiate the IFileOperation shell interface, then all file operations done with that interface will be elevated without having to elevate the calling process, or having to create a separate EXE/process to handle the file access.

Upvotes: 5

Ian Boyd
Ian Boyd

Reputation: 256581

You need to ShellExecute a copy of your program using the runas verb. That will cause the copy to be elevated. This elevated process can then do the thing.

Typically you pass a copy of yourself a command line option indicating you want to do that protected thing:

ShellExecute(0, "runas" "Frobber.exe", "-doThatThingThatRequiresElevation", "");

Upvotes: 0

Solx
Solx

Reputation: 5111

The accepted wisdom is that this is not possible because you cannot elevate a program as it is running. Also see: Can a process elevate itself after startup?

Upvotes: -1

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