Detecting UAC on WIN8

[sharon]

Hi all,

I need to detect if UAC is on during installation in order to prompt a message (if msi is being run).

So far, I had done this successfully using the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA key.

On WIN8, this key is no longer initialized when setting UAC on/off, therefore no longer usable for UAC detection.

I would appreciate your help with this,
Thanks,
Sharon.

[Barvaz]

sharon wrote:
Hi all,

I need to detect if UAC is on during installation in order to prompt a message (if msi is being run).

So far, I had done this successfully using the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA key.

On WIN8, this key is no longer initialized when setting UAC on/off, therefore no longer usable for UAC detection.

I would appreciate your help with this,
Thanks,
Sharon.

We're encountered in the same qustion as well - Please advice.

Thanks,
Yona

[Christopher_Pai]

Does your installer not work if UAC is enabled? If not, why?

[Barvaz]

Hi Christopher,

Our Setup application includes Third-Party installations which require admin user and UAC=off.
Both the third-party vendors and our application write to system folders.
Thus, UAC must be turned off before installation begins.

We encountered several cases where UI or silent Setup failed due to UAC no being turned off.

Until Win7, enableLUA registry entry was checked.

What can be checked in Win8?
Does Installshield has such built-in capability?

Thanks

[Christopher_Pai]

This sounds like a situation where I'd put the third party software in setup.exe as a setup prerequisite and have the EXE manifested to require elevation. This should give the third party installer full permission to do whatever it needs to do.

I've never needed to care about UAC settings in an installer. I just assume the strictest case and design around it.