Vista - Vista 'deciding' a program needs to be run as administrator

Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been going
fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked fine,
but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that something
may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be one-off,
perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every time
I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in compatibility
settings, and nothing's checked.
I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe with
another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will run it
as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute. How
can I resolve this issue?
A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on the
MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717

And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on vista
I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It even
says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

David,

try:
Right click the Firefox.exe file,
select properties
select compatibility tab
make sure Privilege Level has the check box cleared for 'Run this program as
an administrator'

If you purchased your Vista from an OEM (not boxed or from Microsoft) they
are responsible for support, not Microsoft.
An OEM supplied ID will not work to obtain support, the error message is
really misleading.

Michael


"david" <noreply@none.com> wrote in message
news:3792C7E2-3773-40B2-8A7B-2EEB23ABD08D@microsoft.com...
> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been going
> fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked fine,
> but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that
> something may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try
> running firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be
> one-off, perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now
> every time I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in
> compatibility settings, and nothing's checked.
> I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
> firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe
> with another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will
> run it as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
> firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute. How
> can I resolve this issue?
> A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on the
> MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:
>
> http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717
>
> And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on
> vista I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
> support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
> entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It
> even says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.
>
> Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Hi, thanks for your reply.

The box is cleared, as I stated in my original post. I've also tried setting
the box, pressing apply, and clearing it again, but to no avail.

I'm running Vista preinstalled on an HP laptop, so I guess I should contact
them for support, though the message is indeed misleading. However I'm not
sure how helpful HP support would be with this issue, hence my posting here.

Thanks.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael" <mexxwalraven@verson.net>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windows.vista.administration_accounts_passwords
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 7:36 PM
Subject: Re: Vista 'deciding' a program needs to be run as administrator


> David,
>
> try:
> Right click the Firefox.exe file,
> select properties
> select compatibility tab
> make sure Privilege Level has the check box cleared for 'Run this program
> as an administrator'
>
> If you purchased your Vista from an OEM (not boxed or from Microsoft) they
> are responsible for support, not Microsoft.
> An OEM supplied ID will not work to obtain support, the error message is
> really misleading.
>
> Michael
>
>
> "david" <noreply@none.com> wrote in message
> news:3792C7E2-3773-40B2-8A7B-2EEB23ABD08D@microsoft.com...
>> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been
>> going fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which
>> worked fine, but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog
>> suggesting that something may not have worked correctly, and asking if I
>> would like to try running firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking
>> that this would be one-off, perhaps to complete installation of the
>> addon, I pressed yes. Now every time I run firefox I get the UAC
>> 'Continue' screen. I've looked in compatibility settings, and nothing's
>> checked.
>> I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
>> firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe
>> with another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista
>> will run it as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program
>> files\mozilla firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges
>> to execute. How can I resolve this issue?
>> A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on
>> the MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:
>>
>> http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717
>>
>> And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on
>> vista I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
>> support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
>> entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It
>> even says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
>

A quick registry search solved the problem. If anyone else has this problem
and wants to fix it, go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

Find the key referencing the troublesome executable and delete it.
It would be nice if there was a more elegant way to do this (maybe there is
but I just don't know)


"david" <noreply@none.com> wrote in message
news:3792C7E2-3773-40B2-8A7B-2EEB23ABD08D@microsoft.com...
> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been going
> fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked fine,
> but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that
> something may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try
> running firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be
> one-off, perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now
> every time I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in
> compatibility settings, and nothing's checked.
> I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
> firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe
> with another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will
> run it as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
> firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute. How
> can I resolve this issue?
> A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on the
> MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:
>
> http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717
>
> And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on
> vista I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
> support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
> entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It
> even says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.
>
> Thanks in advance for any ideas.

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:03:22 +1200, "david" <noreply@none.com> wrote:

>...when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that something
>may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
>firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be one-off,
>perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every time
>I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in compatibility
>settings, and nothing's checked.

The system that automatically prompts for and applies compatibility
fixups for apps (as happened here) is separate to that presented via
the various shell and Properties UIs.

So you have the shell "Run as admin" setting, and related Properties
setting, and you have the "Admin" checkbox within the Compatability
section of Properties as well.

But in addition, there's the system-initiated automatic fixer-upper
that you tripped over, and that (by design) has no UI at all (other
than the initial pop-ups). So to manage the setting, you have some
research ahead... it may be registry, but it may also be something
"outside", such as program manifest files.

I'd like to know more about all this, too ;-)



>------------ ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
The most accurate diagnostic instrument
in medicine is the Retrospectoscope
>------------ ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

As i posted earlier, its HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

"cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)" <cquirkenews@nospam.mvps.org> wrote in
message news3n433ptl7qtqmtmh9up2r1c7mus9gc81b@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 19:03:22 +1200, "david" <noreply@none.com> wrote:
>
>>...when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that
>>something
>>may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
>>firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be
>>one-off,
>>perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every
>>time
>>I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in
>>compatibility
>>settings, and nothing's checked.
>
> The system that automatically prompts for and applies compatibility
> fixups for apps (as happened here) is separate to that presented via
> the various shell and Properties UIs.
>
> So you have the shell "Run as admin" setting, and related Properties
> setting, and you have the "Admin" checkbox within the Compatability
> section of Properties as well.
>
> But in addition, there's the system-initiated automatic fixer-upper
> that you tripped over, and that (by design) has no UI at all (other
> than the initial pop-ups). So to manage the setting, you have some
> research ahead... it may be registry, but it may also be something
> "outside", such as program manifest files.
>
> I'd like to know more about all this, too ;-)
>
>
>
>>------------ ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
> The most accurate diagnostic instrument
> in medicine is the Retrospectoscope
>>------------ ----- ---- --- -- - - - -