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I have an application that has no resources (at all, so no UAC manifest either). This application installs itself to the appdata/roaming folder with CopyFile. It also sets an autostart so it starts automatically with every start. Now with every start of the pc, the UAC Dialog pops up and says that the application does changes to the pc. It also has the shield sign on the icon if it's located in appdata. How can I remove the dialog / the shield in the icon? Does Windows detect the copyfile API and sets it automatically?

Thanks for your answer(s).

Ben
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    The name of the exe doesn't include "setup" by any chance, right? I know that would trigger the UAC prompt automatically. – 0xFE Oct 21 '12 at 04:34
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    @user141603: what you are referring to is UAC's "Installer Detection" feature. `"setup"` is only one of many keywords that it looks for, and the filename is only one of many places it looks for keywords. See [MSDN](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb756960.aspx) for more details. – Remy Lebeau Oct 21 '12 at 07:44
  • impressive. I really didn't know that UAC can be triggered by it's filename. Thank you :) – Ben Oct 21 '12 at 12:28
  • This looks a lot like a duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/533939/how-to-prevent-vista-from-requiring-elevation-on-patch-exe/1016151#1016151 – SamB Jan 04 '16 at 20:58

1 Answers1

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The best way to avoid it is to add the application manifest: it explicitly conveys to the system that this is not a legacy application and no install-detection logic (which could have false positives) should be applied.

Additionally, your application should have a VersionInfo resource which contains the version of the file and the description.

If your application does not have the manifest, the system uses heuristics to detect if it's installer. If it thinks the application is installer, then running your application will require elevation, and the app will have shield on its icon and executable file.

Excerpt from Installer detection technology:

  • The file name includes keywords such as "install," "setup," or "update."
  • Versioning Resource fields contain the following keywords: Vendor, Company Name, Product Name, File Description, Original Filename, Internal Name, and Export Name.
Alexey Ivanov
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  • that was it. the name of the application was actually update! Didnt know that UAC triggers by filename. Thank you! – Ben Oct 21 '12 at 12:27