Run a windows command or program a la Run program as an administrator

elevate.exe cmd /c mklink /D up ..

Will run “cmd /c mklink /D up ..” with elevated privileges in order to create a symbolic link.

Windows UAC User Account Control improves security for Windows users, at the cost of increase complexity, inconvenience, and frequent frustration for software developers. However, even though the user can adjust the level of security of UAC, or even turn it off, there are still some Windows commands and programs that still require Administrative privileges regardless of UAC settings.

While it is possible to configure programs to “Always Run as an Administrator,” this requires manual intervention on the user's part. Usually software developers get tripped up when they are are trying to automate processes, such as unit test, and the process will fail because someone has forgotten to set a program's properties with “Always Run as an Administrator.”

One way around this is to embed the necessary privileges in the Windows .exe or .dll file via the [Application Manifests](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374191(v=vs.85\).aspx), for example

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
  <assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
    <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2">
      <security>
        <requestedPrivileges xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
          <!--
            The presence of the "requestedExecutionLevel" node will disable
            file and registry virtualization on Vista.

            Use the "level" attribute to specify the User Account Control level:
              asInvoker            = Never prompt for elevation
              requireAdministrator = Always prompt for elevation
              highestAvailable     = Prompt for elevation when started by administrator, but
                                     do not prompt for administrator password when started by
                                     standard user.
            -->
          <requestedExecutionLevel level="requireAdministrator"/>
        </requestedPrivileges>
      </security>
    </trustInfo>
  </assembly>

For example, the program elevate.exe has this manifest bundled into it, so it will always behave as if a use manually enabled the program properties “Always Run as an Administrator.”

• Use Case: Automated Unit Tests

  Often automated tests use test fixtures to setup the environment for the Unit Under Test. If one of the things the test fixture needs to do is create a Symbolic Link then this will generally fail on Windows because creating symbolic links can introduce security vulnerabilities into the system. Consequently, this can only be done running as the Administrator user.