NSIS - Launch a program as user from UAC elevated installer

NSIS - Launch a program as user from UAC elevated installer

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I noticed that if a program is running as UAC elevated (admin or high user privileges), 

any opening process by this process will get the same privileges as the executing program,

which means, that any process opened by this UAC elevated program will be elevated also.

I found a solution for it, for opening the process UN-ELEVATED from ELEVATED running program.
I show this information as for NSIS installer, but can be used in ANY development environment (C#, NSIS, C++, JAVA, VB, and any).

The idea is to run the process in UN-ELEVATED mode, using windows's file explorer process `explorer.exe` (info).
Lets say the process that we want to launch is on `$TEMP\MyUnElevatedProcess.exe`.
So, for NSIS code, I will just write:

Exec '"$WINDIR\explorer.exe" "$TEMP\MyUnElevatedProcess.exe"'

And this will do the work...
The process `MyUnElevatedProcess.exe` will run with same ELEVATION that have your windows login, as have `$WINDIR\explorer.exe`.


Execute with parameters:
In addition, if the UN-ELEVATED process need to executed with parameters, you will need to create another file that executes the UN-ELEVATED process (for example a BATCH file which just run the process with the command line parameters).
a good example can be:

; assuming that the file `MyUnElevatedProcess.exe` exists on `$TEMP\`

; create shortcut with ARGUMENTS
CreateShortCut "$TEMP\Shortcut.lnk" "$TEMP\MyUnElevatedProcess.exe" "/arg1 /arg2 /arg3"

; execute the file NON elevated
Exec '"$WINDIR\explorer.exe" "$TEMP\Shortcut.lnk"'

Remember,
if your main program (the executing), is not ELEVATED, this logic is not relevant, because then you can just run `Exec` (open-process function in NSIS) which will have the same elevation as your process.

I hope it helps,
MDB-BLOG

c# WinForm | Check form window size and location

Hello,


I wanted to open a new window form, exactly near another form. (pinning one form to another).
Because of the border difference among Windows XP, Vista and Windows7 (win7), it didn't work easily.

So to determine windows size under win7/vista, I had to check if Windows Aero. (checking made by short&easy code)

Now, after checking this, I had to also support winXP (which does not have AERO technology).

For finding the left and right window border size (width) I used the SystemInformation Class which provides information about the current system environment.

Note:
I recommend to check if it works for other FormBorderStyle.

The code:

internal static bool IsAeroEnabled()
{
    bool isEnabled = false;
    if (Environment.OSVersion.Version.Major >= 6)
    {
        try
        {
            DwmIsCompositionEnabled(out isEnabled);
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            Logger.WriteLog(ex);
        }
    }
    return isEnabled;
}
[DllImport("dwmapi.dll")]
internal static extern int DwmIsCompositionEnabled(out bool enabled);

Best regard,
MDB Blog