jaredpar's WebLog : LUA

Detecting if you are an Admin

Jared Parsons — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:56:02 GMT

This came up on an internal alias. A customer wanted to know how to determine if there were running as an admin in a tool. Below is a sample program that will print out whether or not you are the machine admin or a member of the machine administrators group.

This is essentially the same as the code in a previous post of mine but ported to VB. http://blogs.msdn.com/jaredpar/archive/2005/11/07/489942.aspx

Imports System.Security.Principal
Module Module1

    Function IsRunningAsLocalAdmin() As Boolean
        Dim cur As WindowsIdentity = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent()
        For Each role As IdentityReference In cur.Groups
            If role.IsValidTargetType(GetType(SecurityIdentifier)) Then
                Dim sid As SecurityIdentifier = DirectCast(role.Translate(GetType(SecurityIdentifier)), SecurityIdentifier)
                If sid.IsWellKnown(WellKnownSidType.AccountAdministratorSid) OrElse sid.IsWellKnown(WellKnownSidType.BuiltinAdministratorsSid) Then
                    Return True
                End If

            End If
        Next

        Return False
    End Function

    Sub Main()
        Console.WriteLine("Is Admin {0}", IsRunningAsLocalAdmin())
    End Sub

End Module

Determining if you're an Administrator from Powershell

Jared Parsons — Fri, 19 Jan 2007 22:34:00 GMT

Here's a handy PowerShell function I used to determine if I'm currently running as an Administrator in PowerShell

# Determine if I am running as an Admin
function AmIAdmin()
{
$ident = [Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()

foreach ( $groupIdent in $ident.Groups )
{
  if ( $groupIdent.IsValidTargetType([Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]) )
  {
   $groupSid = $groupIdent.Translate([Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier])
   if ( $groupSid.IsWellKnown("AccountAdministratorSid") -or $groupSid.IsWellKnown("BuiltinAdministratorsSid"))
   {
    return $true;
   }
  }
}

return $false;
}

LUA + MSI + Luanch program now on Vista

Jared Parsons — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 23:36:00 GMT

I'm a huge fan of the LUA support in Vista. It has it's quirks but it's a major step forward for Windows programming. As a former *nix guy I've had to run LUA the hard way before Vista. The support in Vista is tons better than it used to be.

There are a few areas that are still not optimal. One of them that's been bugging me lately are legacy MSI installers. Vista almost always correctly elevates and offers to run the installer as Admin.

This causes a small problem though with some legacy MSI's. A lot of MSI have a check box at the end of the MSI setup with text similar to "Launch SuchAndSuch Program Now". The problem is who the program launches as.

Prior to Vista there was no auto-priviledge elevation. So most people ran MSI's as there normal user account which was an admin. Launching the process at the end of the MSI was just fine.

Now in Vista most people run as a normal user and MSI's elevated. So this feature will now, on legacy MSI's, launch the program as an Administrator rather than your normal user account.

Without the help of a tool, there's no good way to detect when this happens. To be safe, I always un check that box and manually start the app so I know it will be running under my normal account.