I found interesting problem with Win7/X64 machine.
For this time I haven't got problem with Delphi 6 and UAC.
The exes are working in their's place, so I can use Delphi debugger with them.
But today I got error on run the project: "Unable to create process. For this operation you need higher user level".
How can I prevent this side-effect?
What causes this?
I don't understand why the older projects are running fine, but this new isn't...
Thanks for every idea, link, information!
Additional info:
Normally I using the Delphi 6 IDE with normal starting (without SysAdmin rigths).
So it is never asking me with "really?" kind UAC questions.
And every of the older projects are usable with Delphi 6 - I can build, run, debug everything.
This problem happened with only this project, so I try to find the differences if possible to solve the problem.
I using normal directory ("c:\dev\anyproject"), others are using "c:\dev\otherproject1..2..n").
Does your application request elevation when started from Windows Explorer?
Does it have a manifest?
The name of the exe, like setup.exe, could also trigger elevation. See an outline of the Installer detection technology.
Non-elevated process can't debug elevated process.
If your application requires elevation at the start, then you would need to run the IDE elevated to be able to debug it.
Starting your IDE as an administrator should solve the problem (option in the context menu).
If not, you could always disable UAC while developing.
There is a number of limitations that needs administrator's rights.
For example: you cannot write data directly into program files directory.
Related
This is a weird one. I've now installed Delphi 5, updated to service pack 1, on my brand new Windows 7 64-bit machine. It seems to function well enough, but when I start it up an error message comes up telling me that the system cannot rename Delphi32.$$$ to Delphi32.dro. I thought "Okay" and went in to rename it manually, only to find that there was no Delphi32.$$$ but there, large as life, was a Delphi32.dro ...
I'm logged on to an administrator-level account, so I figure it isn't a permissions issue.
I'm willing to live with this slight annoyance, but I am worried that it is symptomatic of some deeper problem.
Has anyone else encountered this?
This is a user permissions issue.
Even running as an administrative user, Windows 7 puts some limits on where applications can write. C:\Program Files, (AKA %PROGRAMFILES%) is off-limits except to applications explicitly started using "Run as Administrator", even if you're running under an account with Admin privileges.
More recent versions of Delphi properly handle running from the restricted folders, but D5 was outdated long before Win7 was released and therefore does all sorts of things that aren't proper now. It writes to its own Bin and Lib folders, for instance, and stores the default Projects folder for your own projects there as well.
The easiest solution is to uninstall Delphi 5, and reinstall in a location outside the %PROGRAMFILES% directory structure, such as C:\Delphi5 or C:\Borland\Delphi5. Installing in a different root level folder resolves these issues.
Actually, the easiest solution is to upgrade to a more recent Delphi version, but I'll presume that isn't an option. :-)
This might also help with Delphi 5:
http://blog.dummzeuch.de/2013/11/11/delphi-6-on-windows-8-1/
Ken White's Answer sums it up nicely.
Installing Delphi in a folder other than "Program Files" can threaten and infect Delphi files, and malware can easily infect your Delphi files
(this is a serious threat).
My suggestion is to install a sandbox (or a program virtualization) such as Sandboxie-Plus and Run Delphi from it, you can force Delphi to always run from the sandbox, just be careful your project files are stored inside the sandbox, so you have to manually move them out of the sandbox (for when you want to publish it)
I have a single executable which, via InnoSetup, installs into Program Files\FolderName by default. The exe has a 3rd party component which goes online to check for new versions and downloads them, then does a bit of fiddling to replace the exe - simple stuff. The problem is, it can't do this in Program Files because of the necessary security there. I was reading Windows 7 - Can't update my program's files in C:\Program Files in which David Hefferman gives a solution but then seems to say it's a bad idea - but I don't know whether the bad idea bit refers to his solution or to the OP's comments!
So what is the preferred method by which a program can update itself? One that will work on XPSP3 to Win8. I can't seem to find the right phrase to enter into Google that gives me relevant results. Ignore digital signatures and suchlike for now, for simplicity.
(Please note, it may look like I worded that as an opinion question but it's not - there must be some MS-endorsed way of doing it that I can't find. FWIW this is a Delphi program but any Win32 notes will do)
That 3rd party update utility needs to be run with administrative privileges, you can achieve that programmatically.
There is nothing wrong with installing your application in Program Files, that is the designated purpose of this folder. However, user data that is used by the application should be stored in a different location.
However you run that 3rd party Utility, you should first check the Windows OS version to see if fiddling with UAC is really necessary(Vista+...) and then run the utility in the elevated state.
He says its "extremely bad practice" to fiddle with your system so that normal users can write in "Program Files".
If your program is in "Program Files" it's installed with System Admin rights. So updates need also be installed with System Admin rights.
You can configure InnoSetup to request admin-rights so you can write to "Program Files" but if the 3rd party component does not do this its best to install everything in an other directory.
i.e. C:\Your_Program
That way your 3rd party component can write there.
There are several options here:
The easiest: make updater as a separate program with manifest, which requires admin privileges. Also you can ask for admin privileges when you start your updater. Or you can move your updater into out-of-process COM object instead of separate exe.
You can create hidden user with admin rigths during installation of your program. Then you will run your updater with credentials of this user.
You can install system service during installation of your program and this service will run from system account. So your updater will be implemented as a service.
We have a Delphi 7 application running on numerous client machines. Recently, some of the client machines started using Microsoft Security Essentials. It started identifying our executable as malware and promptly shut it down. The message displayed by MS Security essentials is:
"Security Essentials detected items on your PC that it doesn't recognize......"
Odd thing is it does not always occur at the same option in the application. You can do the very same operation on subsequent logins and sometimes it works and other times security essentials closes it down. This makes it extremely hard to narrow down to a specific cause in our application.
I tried running the application with elevated account privileges and was still able to get it to fail. I was unable to duplicate the issue when running a Delphi XE2 compile of the same application.
Any ideas about what to look for? We are really trying to avoid adding our application to the Security Essentials exclusion list. Our application has never been identified as a problem with varying security programs (norton, mcaffee, etc.).
I once had a similar issue with an executable built using Delphi(7), though it had nothing to do with Delphi-7. It just so happens that some part of the executable matches some virus signature or the AV heuristic scan suspects that something is wrong with the executable. One thing you can try is to change some of the compiler settings such as Debug options. Changing Debug Information or using debug DCUs might result in a slightly different byte sequences in the final executable.
I have made a simple installer application in Delphi, nothing fancy. Basically I include files into the Exe, and then extract them to a user specified path.
I stumbled across a problem however, and I have noticed this works with ANY Windows Executable, it does not matter if it is an installer or not.
If an Exe is named, or contains the following words in the filename, "Setup", "Build", "Install" and maybe others, then.. whenever the Application is run and closed, Windows pops up a Product Compatibility Assistant dialog, saying the Application may not have installed correctly.
This is a problem, as even though the Files from my installer have actually extracted, and in my eyes the installer has done its job, Windows is complaining about it.
The only idea I have regarding this, is that Windows must check the filename of the Applications when executed, and in this case has identified it as an Installer. Windows must of then set a flag or something on the System, my Installer must then update this flag to say that the installation was a success?
Windows does not complain about this when debugging from the IDE, so it cannot be code related, it must be the OS - this only happens when launching the Application from Windows, not Delphi.
You can try this easily, either create an Application or rename one as Setup.exe, Run it and then close it - wait a few seconds and the Product Compatibility Assistant Dialog will show.
I don't know where to start investigating how to stop this dialog, or where a setting may be to tell Windows the Installer was completed correctly.
Appreciate your thoughts and solutions thanks.
If I recall correctly, this happens when your install app does not include an application manifest. When UAC was introduced, MS introduced a heuristic detection for installers and shows the UAC elevation dialog. The heuristic checks for names like setup.exe, install.exe. The simple solution is to include an application manifest. If it is an installer you probably want to use the requireAdministrator setting.
The feature is known as Installer Detection and is discussed here.
For what it is worth, I would always build an installer with a dedicated install tool like InnoSetup for example.
As David pointed out, MS uses some fuzzy logic to try to guess if the program is an installer. I wouldn't rely on this, as this is only for supporting legacy installer applications.
All new applications should have a manifest file, specifying whether it requires elevated privileges.
If an application has a manifest file that includes the requestedExecutionLevel directive, then Windows does not attempt Installer Detection.
Any program that is detected as an installer program but does not add a registry entry to the Add Remove Programs section of the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall) will get the message "This program might not have installed correctly".
I'm using D2010 under Windows 7 to write an app that seems to require admin rights (I think because it uses COM to communicate with a third party .exe, which also requires admin rights).
I've added the manifest resource as required, but when I try to debug the app from the IDE, it reports
"Unable to create process. The
requested operation requires
elevation"
...and it won't run. If I run Delphi as administrator, then my app runs correctly, but this feels like a dangerous brute force approach, especially as most of the apps I develop don't need admin privileges.
Is there any way of getting Delphi to prompt for elevation just when I run my app, rather than having the whole IDE run elevated?
UAC also catches any application that has the words "setup", "update" or "install" in their name or in many of the Version Resource fields. (Company name, App Name, Description etc.
It considers any such application to be a potential "installer" application and therefore must be run with Admin privileges.
Sounds crazy, but it's true. See the "Installer Detection" section in this document.
You can get around this by including a manifest that says that it doesn't need admin privileges.
There is none, it also doesn't work for VS:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3265787/how-do-i-debug-an-process-as-elevated-with-visual-studio-2008-sp1-on-windows-7
I guess you could run the remote debugger elevated and attach the IDE using remote debugging though.
It doesn't work, because the process is running as another user (or using another user token).
The IDE is trying to run the debugging process using CreateProcess and that fails when the application requires elavation, more details can be found in this article:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/vista-security/UAC__The_Definitive_Guide.aspx
RAD Studio could run the application using ShellExecute with the "runas" verb, but this still doesn't solve the "debugging process under other user context" issue.
In other words: An elevated process can only be debugged by an elavated debugger.
Edit:
The Delphi XE2 IDE is 32-Bit and can debug 64-Bit applications only through the remote debugger (which is cleverly hidden from the user).
I guess Embarcadero could make it possible to debug elevated applications in a similar fashion.
The only way I know to debug such an app is to run the IDE as administrator. I wouldn't recommend doing this routinely, just for debugging sessions.
Actually it may be possible to debug a process with "higher level access" from a process with "normal level access".
At least until Windows XP it is sufficient to add your user account to the Debugger Users group to debug processes running e.g. with Administrator privileges.
That doesn't solve Delphi 2010s problem to run the process at all, but may be useful if you try to attach the debugger to a already running process.
I don't think this works on UAC enabled Vista+, but I thought I'd mention it anyway. :)
To be exact the UAC split token concept disables the SeDebugPrivilege:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/greggm/archive/2006/03/30/565303.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mithuns/archive/2006/04/04/568291.aspx
Run Delphi (any version) as Administrator.
You can change Delphi shortcut properties also (to run it always as administrator).