Application runs as administrator from installer

[ygoe]

Details

A common issue, sadly. When the application is installed using the provided installer (thanks for bringing it back!), it runs with the same administrator privileges as the installer. This is undesired. And it prevents drag&drop operations, like dragging a database file into the window (along with other interactions subject to security isolation). The application has to be restarted regularly through the start menu to make it work again.

Steps to reproduce

1. Install
2. Leave the option "run now" active
3. Drag a file from Windows Explorer onto the main window's database list

Operating system

Windows 10

SQLiteStudio version

3.4.4

[pawelsalawa]

Yes. This is just how the installer works. I'm not aware of a solution for this at the moment, but I will keep this for next major version. Maybe I will figure something out.

[ygoe]

IIRC, Inno Setup solved it like this long ago: Before the process elevates, it keeps the unelevated process for later. When the elevated installer process is done, it tells the unelevated process to run the application from its context. Once a process has been elevated, there is no way to undo that. And running as a specific user only works when providing their credentials, which are not available here. So keeping the unelevated process is probably the only solution. It has to be supported by the setup tool, there's probably not much you can do about it as the user, other than bugging them to get their stuff right. 😁

Some might classify this as a security-related issue because it wasn't intended to run the actual application with administrator privileges and it's not obvious that it happened.

[ygoe]

If the installer system doesn't support this, then it may be an option to install the application entirely in the user directory (%LocalAppData% instead of %ProgramFiles%). That would remove the need to elevate the installer and also get rid of the yellow warning as the installer is not signed. If a multi-mode installer cannot (easily) be created, a separate installer package might be an alternative.

[pawelsalawa]

I will review possibilities of how to handle it when I get to work on this issue. It's planned for 3.5.0.