Question

I have been trying to deal with the Windows UAC ‘feature‘ that looks for the word ‘setup’ or ‘install’ in an application and automatically believes it’s an installer.

I tried adding a embedded manifest, as suggested in this stackoverflow question, and that fixes my problem on Vista and 7, but breaks my application on Server 2003.

I also tried some fixes I have found on a few other sites. One suggestion I found on Microsoft’s site was to use .config, instead of .exe.config. It worked great, but that is not an option as it goes against the convention of all of our other applications.

The other option was to add the assemblyIdentity node to the manfiest. I tryed this and was unable to get this to work.

Below is my manifest as it looks now. Any ideas?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
  <assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0"> 
  <compatibility xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1">  
    <application>
      <!--The ID below indicates application support for Windows Vista -->
      <supportedOS Id="{e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0}"/>
      <!--The ID below indicates application support for Windows 7 -->
      <supportedOS Id="{35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a}"/>
    </application>
    <dependency>
      <dependentAssembly>
        <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls" version="6.0.0.0" processorArchitecture="" publicKeyToken="6595b64144ccf1df" language="*"></assemblyIdentity>
      </dependentAssembly>
    </dependency>
  </compatibility>
</assembly>

Note: This is a managed C# application. And the manifest has to be embedded into the executable.

Thanks,
Pete

Answer 1

Refer the MSDN documentation, you are very likely to have crafted the manifest incorrectly if this breaks on Server 2003. Unfortunately I’ve only ever dealt with manifests for native code so I’m not sure where to start for C#

Installer Detection Technology

Installation programs are applications
designed to deploy software, and most
write to system directories and
registry keys. These protected system
locations are typically writeable only
by an administrator user, which means
that standard users do not have
sufficient access to install programs.
Windows Vista heuristically detects
installation programs and requests
administrator credentials or approval
from the administrator user in order
to run with access privileges. Windows
Vista also heuristically detects
updater and uninstallation programs.
Note that a design goal of UAC is to
prevent installations from being
executed without the user’s knowledge
and consent since they write to
protected areas of the file system and
registry.

Installer Detection only applies to:

1. bit executables
2. Applications without a requestedExecutionLevel
3. Interactive processes running as a Standard User with LUA enabled

Before a 32 bit process is created,
the following attributes are checked
to determine whether it is an
installer:

• Filename includes keywords like “install,” “setup,” “update,” etc.
• Keywords in the following Versioning Resource fields: Vendor, Company Name, Product Name, File Description, Original Filename, Internal Name, and Export Name.
• Keywords in the side-by-side manifest embedded in the executable.
• Keywords in specific StringTable entries linked in the executable.
• Key attributes in the RC data linked in the executable.
• Targeted sequences of bytes within the executable.