How Can I Elevate Administrator Privileges for My C Application at Runtime?

Runtime Elevation of Administrator Privileges in C Applications

The ability to request administrator privileges from the operating system at runtime is a desirable feature for certain applications. In Windows, this capability has been available through various mechanisms.

Compile-Time Elevation

As mentioned in the question, administrator privileges can be granted to an application during compilation by setting the application's manifest to "requireAdministrator." However, if the requirement to elevate arises at runtime, other approaches are necessary.

Runtime Elevation

To elevate the privileges of an existing application at runtime, several options exist:

External Manifest

Similar to compile-time elevation, an external manifest can be created and associated with the application's executable file. This manifest can specify the "requestedExecutionLevel" to be "requireAdministrator."

RunAs Verb

By using the "runas" verb in the ShellExecute function, it is possible to launch a process with elevated privileges. This option allows the user to be prompted for administrator credentials before the process is executed.

Specifically for Current Instance

If the goal is to elevate the privileges of the current instance of the application, without losing preserved data in memory, it is possible to use the Windows "CreateSymbolicLinkW" function to create a symbolic link to the administrator account's executable. This technique involves creating a symbolic link with the same name as the running application and pointing it to the elevated version of the executable. The elevated version can then be executed, inheriting the original application's memory and resources.

The above is the detailed content of How Can I Elevate Administrator Privileges for My C Application at Runtime?. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!