Question

I have a program that needs to run as a normal user most of the time, but once in a while I need to stop and start a service. How do I go about making a program that runs as a normal user most of the time but elevates into administrator mode for some function?

Answer 1

You can’t elevate a process once its running but you could either :-

Restart the process as elevated

private void elevateCurrentProcess() {     ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();     startInfo.UseShellExecute = true;     startInfo.WorkingDirectory = Environment.CurrentDirectory;            startInfo.FileName = Application.ExecutablePath;     startInfo.Verb = "runas";      try     {         Process p = Process.Start(startInfo);     }     catch     {         // User didn't allow UAC         return;     }     Application.Exit(); } 

This method means that your process continues to run elevated and no more UAC promopts – both a good and a bad thing, depends upon your audience.

Put the code that requires elevation into a seperate exe

Set the manifest as requireAdministrator and start it as a separate process. See this sample code

This method means a UAC prompt every time you run the operation.

Best method depends upon your audience (admin types or not) and frequency of the elevated operation.