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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-13T05:47:12+00:00

This is the scenario: I have a service (#1) running as LOCAL SYSTEM, and

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This is the scenario:

I have a service (#1) running as LOCAL SYSTEM, and it will eventually run a process (#2) that updates an application (#3). This process (#2), the updater, must run as LOCAL SYSTEM also, no problem here, since it needs to rewrite some files (#3).

When the updater starts as LOCAL SYSTEM, it will kill any running instance of my application (#3). After the files being update, I need to start the updated application (#3) again as the current logged account.

How could I manage this? Is there anything conceptually wrong in my idea?

UPDATED
The updater kills the app just to replace the files.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I don’t think there’s a way for the service to get its hands on the WindowsIdentity.Token handle it would need to call the CreateProcessAsUser() API function. Unless the app itself provides it.

    There’s a better way, you don’t have to terminate the app to replace its executable files. All you have to do is rename them. You can then put the updates in place and signal the app to restart itself. Another nice advantage of this approach is that the app voluntarily shuts down (including notifying the user) instead of getting rudely aborted. Clean up the renamed files when you see the process terminated.

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