I recently installed a program (FileHippo App Manager) on my Win8.1 PC whose installer showed a UAC (User Account Control) prompt that required me to enter my administrator password. It's typical for installers to do this on Windows, but it doesn't seem necessary for this one because I don't think it requires access to any restricted folders (like the Program Files folder or the Start Menu folder containing shortcuts for all users).

In addition, I don't want to run the installer as admin, because it creates a start menu shortcut for only one user (the user who runs the installer). I always log in to my PC using a non-admin account for security reasons, so running this installer as admin places the shortcut in a folder where I never see it.

So, I would like to be able to run the installer using my standard (non-admin) user account, but don't know how to do this. The EXE icon has a little shield in the corner of it in Windows Explorer, meaning that Windows thinks (I believe incorrectly) that the installer must be run as admin, but the "Run this program as an administrator" checkbox in the Compatibility tab of the Properties dialog is unchecked. Does anyone know if it is possible to run the installer as a standard user, instead of as admin?

Note: I am not merely asking how to bypass the UAC prompt, which I am aware is fairly easy to do (by disabling certain security features). Rather, I don't want to run the installer as admin.

 

Can you not install as admin, then share it with "everyone" under the security settings.

 

My guess is that to do what you ask you will have to somehow change the embedded manifest in the .exe. I think this is hard.

If I understand your problem correctly, the installer only provides entries on the start menu for the user who runs the installer, and helpfully insists that this is the administrator.

It may be enough to simply create a shortcut to the application .exe (probably located in the Program Files directory) to run the program.

If you want to actually copy the start menu shortcuts to the user account, be aware that the start menu items are simply shortcuts in a special directory. To see it, click on Start and right click on 'All Programs' and go open. This will open the directory with the shortcuts in it, note the location. If you do the same thing when logged on as administrator you should be able to locate the shortcuts you want. Copy them to the start menu folder you located for your user account. Check that the copies in your user folder have permissions set that allows appropriate access from your user account, if you copy over a folder, don't forget to check the folder permissions as well.

 

My guess is that to do what you ask you will have to somehow change the embedded manifest in the .exe. I think this is hard.

If I understand your problem correctly, the installer only provides entries on the start menu for the user who runs the installer, and helpfully insists that this is the administrator.

It may be enough to simply create a shortcut to the application .exe (probably located in the Program Files directory) to run the program.

If you want to actually copy the start menu shortcuts to the user account, be aware that the start menu items are simply shortcuts in a special directory. To see it, click on Start and right click on 'All Programs' and go open. This will open the directory with the shortcuts in it, note the location. If you do the same thing when logged on as administrator you should be able to locate the shortcuts you want. Copy them to the start menu folder you located for your user account. Check that the copies in your user folder have permissions set that allows appropriate access from your user account, if you copy over a folder, don't forget to check the folder permissions as well.

Thanks. I had already copied the start menu shortcut between user folders, and I suppose that's the best way to work around this inconvenience for now.