undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdist-epoch2y ago0 comments

Putting Microsoft in the UAC prompt is indeed weird. It should be the info of the target binary. This feature sounds a bit rushed, and it's early preview, maybe they fix it by the final release.

0 comments

8 comments · 2 top-level

zadjii2y ago· 6 in thread

Yea, that's a limitation of UAC at this point, and probably not one we can avoid. The "Show details" dropdown on the dialog does however show the commandline you requested, so at least that's one way of making sure it's the thing you ran

londons_explore2y ago

A tool like sudo should probably be sufficiently integrated with UAC to be able to customize that dialogue box...

Sakos2y ago

You say that like Microsoft isn't an incredibly deeply dysfunctional company with absurd turf wars and conflicting interests between all the teams. You'd think it should be sufficiently integrated, but it's likely office politics made that impossible. How about be glad we got this at all as a first step, then maybe it will build momentum towards a better integrated solution?

4 more replies

SushiHippie2y ago

The best way would be, if it could say something like:

Allow $PARENT_PROCESS_NAME to run $COMMAND with administrator rights.

So if you would enter the following in cmd.exe:

  sudo notepad.exe ...

It would say:

Allow Command Processor Shell to run notepad.exe ... with administrator rights.

zadjii2y ago

Maybe for Windows 2025 we can work with the UAC folks to get something like that. I'm still shocked to this day that we managed to ship this at all. One step at a time :)

2 more replies

worewood2y ago

From the diagram on the article I see that sudo is elevated first, then the target program is launched.

Can't you call the target program directly? There must be a way, because explorer.exe is not elevated, and when you right click a program and choose "Run as administrator" you get a pop-up for the target .exe, not for Explorer.

marwis2y ago

Maybe until UAC is improved you can ship with a launcher process that is signed by publisher "Unknown"?

saagarjha2y ago

Yes, but then you would just run sudo cmd.exe [the program you want to run] and it will still say Microsoft.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse