Bypassing elevation when launching a new process

Question

OK, here's my problem: I'm trying to launch a third-party application. This application is apparently configured to require elevation, presumably via an embedded manifest. My program is running in the context of a non-administrative user, and I want the third-party application to run in the same context.

When I call CreateProcess it returns error code 740, "The requested operation requires elevation."

I've tried the CREATE_PRESERVE_CODE_AUTHZ_LEVEL flag which sounded relevant but it made no difference.

The third party application does work without administrator privilege, e.g., if I disable UAC and then run it as a non-administrator.

Thanks in advance for any tips/ideas you may have.

Answer 1

Set the environment variable __compat_layer for your process to RunAsInvoker. If this environment variable is set, CreateProcess will succeed.

You can use the SetEnvironmentVariable function for this purpose.