How do you request administrator permissions using NSIS?

by 
Outfile RequireAdmin.exe
RequestExecutionLevel admin ;Require admin rights on NT6+ (When UAC is turned on)

!include LogicLib.nsh

Function .onInit
UserInfo::GetAccountType
pop $0
${If} $0 != "admin" ;Require admin rights on NT4+
    MessageBox mb_iconstop "Administrator rights required!"
    SetErrorLevel 740 ;ERROR_ELEVATION_REQUIRED
    Quit
${EndIf}
FunctionEnd

Page InstFiles

Section
SectionEnd

is the basic code I usually recommend to make sure the installer is running as an Administrator.

IMHO it does not make sense to prompt for credentials on a custom page unless only parts of the install process requires administrator access and the other part requires access to the users profile. If this applies to you then you should take a look at the UAC plug-in (It is a bit complicated to use and makes it impossible for your exe file to get the shield overlay icon)

I don’t think the RunAs plug-in works correctly on Vista+ when UAC is on so trying to get it to work might be a dead end…

The recommended way to get the shield is to request elevation in the exe manifest, RequestExecutionLevel admin does that. If you don’t use RequestExecutionLevel at all in your script your installer might be detected as a legacy installer and it will also get the shield overlay.

In Windows Vista, if an executable file requires elevation to launch,
then the executable’s icon should be “stamped” with a shield icon to
indicate this fact. The executable’s application manifest must mark
“requireAdministrator” to designate the executable as requiring a full
administrative access token. The shield icon overlay will also be
automatically placed on executables that are deemed to require
elevation as per the installer detection heuristics. For example, a
file named setup.exe will automatically receive a shield icon overlay
even if the executable does not have an embedded application manifest.

More Related Contents:

  1. Run Java file as Administrator with full privileges
  2. What precisely does ‘Run as administrator’ do? [closed]
  3. How do I force my .NET application to run as administrator?
  4. Running a command as Administrator using PowerShell?
  5. Start / Stop a Windows Service from a non-Administrator user account
  6. How to run vbs as administrator from vbs?
  7. How to start a new process without administrator privileges from a process with administrator privileges?
  8. Admin rights for a single method
  9. Run process as administrator from a non-admin application
  10. How do I detect which kind of JRE is installed — 32bit vs. 64bit
  11. Detect if program is running with full administrator rights
  12. How to build RUNAS /NETONLY functionality into a (C#/.NET/WinForms) program?
  13. Is it possible to call Ant or NSIS scripts from Java code?
  14. How do I set a Windows scheduled task to run in the background? [closed]
  15. How to set “Run this program as an administrator” programmatically
  16. Running PowerShell as another user, and launching a script
  17. How to create a Run As Administrator shortcut using Powershell
  18. Python subprocess.Popen as different user on Windows
  19. Visual Studio output file permissions?
  20. Why does ping work without administrator privileges?
  21. C#.NET: Acquire administrator rights?
  22. Detecting if a program is already installed with NSIS
  23. What registry access can you get without Administrator privileges?

Leave a Comment