Compiling a click-once app that requires administrator?

Question

Hi, a lot of my programs require the ability to write files to the hard drive. When I first made these programs for XP they worked great. Now I'm less ignorant about UAC (got a new laptop recently). And for future customers...I've noticed the potential for a LOT of annoying error messages....and quite frankly if the program can't write data to the hard drive or thumb drive it's on...there's no point to running it....

I've tried multiple times to build in the manifest a requirement for administrator or user access....I'm not sure if anything less would solve the problem...but have failed because click-once has security features in place to prevent me from doing so.

I'd rather not have to tell my customers how to make the program run as an administrator by editing the file's properties...I'd much rather have a convenient pop up like what you'd see new programs such as Itunes or Filezilla show if they were in conflict with UAC requesting the privileges they need.

I'd really like to do this but have had little success.

Any and all advice that can remedy this grievous problem appreciated.

Thanks.

Answer 1

First, let me tell you that the design goal of ClickOnce deployment is not to require administrative privileges. This translates into "you can't elevate privileges when running a ClickOnce application".

When Windows Vista came out, Microsoft published guidelines on where to store files that you want to be able to update. NOTHING should be placed in Program Files; they generally recommend LocalApplicationData or Isolated Storage. The same issues are in place for Windows 7.

So where are you trying to write data for your customer?