Vista - Start Process as administrator

Is there a way (by API calls or by using a tool) to start a process from
a standard user account that has administrator privileges *without*
showing any UI under vista?
I need something like the runas.exe but with the ability to supply also
the password of a certain user.

Thanks in advance
Pascal

No. UAC is specifically designed not to permit this. To do so would be a
vulnerability.

You can use run as and supply the password using a batch file or the like,
but doing so would be a bad idea from a security perspective as the password
would be readable to anyone who can execute the file.

"Pascal Berger" wrote:

> Is there a way (by API calls or by using a tool) to start a process from
> a standard user account that has administrator privileges *without*
> showing any UI under vista?
> I need something like the runas.exe but with the ability to supply also
> the password of a certain user.
>
> Thanks in advance
> Pascal
>

Pascal Berger wrote:
> Is there a way (by API calls or by using a tool) to start a process from
> a standard user account that has administrator privileges *without*
> showing any UI under vista?
> I need something like the runas.exe but with the ability to supply also
> the password of a certain user.

Probably what you are looking for is http://sudowin.sourceforge.net/

Also see the sudowin source code at
http://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=143653

You'll have to supply a password for each user though, but it
doesn't need to be their login password.

- Jan

Jan Wagner wrote:
> Probably what you are looking for is http://sudowin.sourceforge.net/
Thank you for this suggestion. The specific case where I need this
functionality is for a custom made installation program. It has some
functionality that you can specify username & password under which the
installer should run into an INI file.
Currently it just calls CreateProcessWithLogonW with the specified
username and password. Under Vista this will fail with a "Elevation
required" error (ShellExecute will fix this an show the UAC dialog
instead. But since I don't want another password prompt this is no
solution for me).
If I understand correctly SudoWin required a Service to run. Since
you'll need admin rights to install the service this also doesn't work
for me.

(I know this could be solved by using an MSI installer, but since it is
quite a complex and deprecated installation program I want to avoid
rewriting the whole installation process)

Thank you
Pascal