Why does Windows not allow WinSock to be started while impersonating another user

Question

Using my own program or others I can't get winsock to run when calling if the process is created with CreateProcessWithLogonW or CreateProcessAsUserW. It returns this error when I create the socket:

WSAEPROVIDERFAILEDINIT 10106

Service provider failed to initialize.

The requested service provider could not be loaded or initialized.

This error is returned if either a service provider's DLL could not be loaded (LoadLibrary failed) or the provider's WSPStartup or NSPStartup function failed

.

However, WSAStartup seems to go w/o an error. Just creating the socket with WSASocket returns this.

UPDATE:

Errors:

LoadUserProfile: Error Code 2. Can't find file specified

AdjustTokenPrivs: Error Code 5. Access Denied

Answer 1

Perhaps the user you executed the process with isn't allowed to use the TCP/IP stack?

Try to start the application with an administrator user that is not your own account.

Answer 2

Run Process Monitor on it and see if it is failing to find a file or registry key. Perhaps the impersonated user's profile is not loaded and Winsock (or a service provider it is trying to load) is looking for something there.

Answer 3

May be you lack the required privileges to run the process as another user. Try getting the handle to the access token by a call to OpenProcessToken and add SE_IMPERSONATE_NAME by a call to AdjustTokenPrivileges and then call CreateProcessAsUserW. I have not tried this myself though.
Code snippet in Python to do something similar with win32 calls

Answer 4

You have to have the Act As Operating Priv

Answer 5

Always start WinSock near the top of main and leave it running. The need to start winsock is an accident of architecture and not germain to any problem domain anymore.