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I've recently upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 (64-bit, Pro) and there's an aspect of its UAC behaviour that puzzles me:

My desktop is covered with shortcuts to apps I've installed under XP, Win7 and Windows 10.

I have the UAC slider set to the one below the most secure setting, whatever that's called If I could find it in Win10, I'd quote what it says, but in Win10 MS seem determined to hide things.

When I double-click the shortcuts, nearly all of the apps launch without the UAC "Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your PC?". That's not because of anything I've consciously done since upgrading to Win10.

But with two apps, an antique Sql Server 2000 Enterprise Manager and that Clean Master utility, I always get the UAC pop-up. I also get it is I select Run as Administrator from their context menu. I don't think it's anything to do with the age of Enterprise Manager, because I don't get the UAC pop-up with its Query Analyzer utility, which is part of the same Sql Server 2000 suite.

For those two, I've gone to the context menu of their desktop shortcuts, clicked the Advanced button on the Shortcut tab and checked the Run as Administrator box, but I still get the UAC pop-up.

My main question is why does Win10 treat them differently regarding the UAC pop-up than all the rest and what can I do to get them treated the same without turning UAC off?

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  • Yes; This behavior has been around since Windows 8 was released. It also cannot be changed. This is no different then having to still use the sudo command and provide a password even if you were logged in as the highest privileged user on a Linux system.
    – Ramhound
    Oct 1, 2015 at 16:00
  • Sorry, that's not my point. What I'd like to know is why those two apps are treated differently that the others. Something, somewhere makes them be treated differently to the dozens of others on my desktop. If I knew what it was, I ought to be able to change how they are treated without having to turn UAC off.
    – MartynA
    Oct 1, 2015 at 16:15
  • One reason. Both applications are ancient not use any of the new Win32 functions. A proper application today would generate a manfest file which outlines how it should behave, and properly and only when required, elevate the process's permissions.
    – Ramhound
    Oct 1, 2015 at 16:50
  • Sorry, that can't be right. Clean Master is relatively recent (I first noticed it a couple of years ago) and actively maintained and in any case I have dozens of testbed applications that I've written myself in Delphi to answer questions on StackOverflow. None of those have manifests (because it's not worth the efford just t test some code) and none of them get the UAC pop-up.
    – MartynA
    Oct 1, 2015 at 16:58
  • Apparently in the absence of a manifest it is based on heuristics where Windows looks for certain patterns and keywords in the executable. If the process doesn't get detected as requiring elevated permissions then certain operations get virtualized. See technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709628(v=ws.10).aspx
    – James P
    Oct 1, 2015 at 20:34

2 Answers 2

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MartynA, What Ramhound said isn't completely true, just partially. The UAC feature has been around as far back as Vista (from my recollection), and can be very annoying at times.

The first thing you should understand about UAC is that it only comes up when it is turned on and when an application is requesting more access than it has. Even on an admin account this will happen, and will definitely happen if you see the little shield appear on the application's shortcut.

The difference between the 2 apps? No clue. Just trust me when i say you are not going to be able to find out what specifically is different between 2 apps, but just know they just need extra permissions to something and that's why the UAC prompt comes up.

Some advice to help with UAC, it's a security feature of Windows, so i can't say to go turn it off. However, if you want to find the setting i just go to the search bar and type in UAC (you can also find in User Accounts in Control Panel). Also, with your comment about not being able to find anything in Windows 10, I would remember that Windows 10 isn't hiding it, it's just showing you the new layout. If you want to find any of the old Windows 7 windows, do a search for it, like search for Control Panel.

When i say search, i do mean the search bar on the bottom (on the taskbar). Hoepfully this helps, but there's plenty to learn about what you can do in Windows 10. I can also clarify anything that may be ambiguous if needed.

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Try this:

  1. Right-click the shortcut
  2. Click the Open File Location button
  3. Make a copy of the target file
  4. Right-click the new copy
  5. Send to > Desktop (create shortcut)
  6. Delete the original shortcut from the desktop
  7. Rename the new shortcut to what you want
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