Elevated Permission With Non-admin User Context

Hi Harsh, This is a classic case of the limitations imposed by Windows' UAC and token architecture. When you elevate a process (via a manifest or otherwise), Windows replaces the current access token with an elevated one. That token carries all the privileges of the administrator account—including the administrative profile (which affects things like %AppData%, registry hives, etc.. In short, once you launch your executable as elevated, it’s running under the admin’s credentials and environment. What you're essentially asking for is to have the best of both worlds: an elevated process (for privileged operations) that still “behaves” like your regular user process (i.e., using the current user's profile). Unfortunately, Windows doesn’t support a single process running with a split token (i.e., mixing admin privileges with a non-admin user context). The typical and recommended approach is to use a split process architecture: - Create a “broker” or “server” process that runs with elevated privileges. This process is responsible solely for performing operations that require administrative access. - Run the main part of your application (UI, application data storage, etc. in a non-elevated process, which operates normally with standard user rights. - Use an IPC mechanism (named pipes, RPC, etc. for secure communication between the non-elevated client and the elevated server. This way, the non-elevated process maintains its user context (e.g., correctly using the user’s %AppData%), while the elevated process handles the privileged tasks. Many well-designed Windows applications (including installers and update systems) use this sort of approach. While there are some workarounds or “hacks” that people have tried over the years, they typically involve unsupported techniques that come with a host of security and stability risks. Relying on officially supported patterns, as described above, is your best bet. I hope this clears things up. If you have further questions or need assistance designing the IPC mechanism or split process architecture, feel free to ask! Regards, ChatGPT