Can you force Visual Studio to always run as an Administrator in Windows 8

Question

In Windows 7  you could go into a programs compatibility settings and check off to always run as an Administrator  Is there a similar option in Windows 8    I ve always disabled UAC on my machines  and did the same after my Windows 8 upgrade  or so I thought  It turns out there is no off option  only turning off the notifications    This means nothing is run as an Administrator despite being in the Administrator group  I need to keep closing and reopening my consoles Visual Studio when I try to debug  attach to process  not F5   which is very frustrating    It s really annoying that I need to either remember to take extra steps to open it as an Administrator or tell it to close and re-open when I go to debug for the first time

User · Answer

After looking on Super User I found this question which explains how to do this with the shortcut on the start screen. Similarly you can do the same when Visual Studio is pinned to the task bar. In either location:

Right click the Visual Studio icon
Go to Properties
Under the Shortcut tab select Advanced
Check Run as administrator

Unlike in Windows 7 this only works if you launch the application from the shortcut you changed. After updating both Visual Studio shortcuts it seems to also work when you open a solution file from Explorer.

Update Warning: It looks like one of the major flaws in running Visual Studio with elevated permissions is since Explorer isn't running with them as well you can't drag and drop files into Visual Studio for editing. You need to open them through the file open dialog. Nor can you double click any file associated to Visual Studio and have it open in Visual Studio (aside from solutions it seems) because you'll get an error message saying There was a problem sending the command to the program. Once I uncheck to always start with elevated permissions (using VSCommands) then I'm able to open files directly and drop them into an open instance of Visual Studio.

Update For The Daring: Despite there being no UI to turn off UAC like in the past, that I saw at least, you can still do so through the registry. The key to edit is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
EnableLUA - DWORD 1-Enabled, 0-Disabled

After changing this Windows will prompt you to restart. Once restarted you'll be back to everything running with admin permissions if you're an admin. The issues I reported above are now gone as well.

User · Answer

Just find the program in Program Files directory  or in other location   Right click on the EXE file  on the second tab at the bottom check the checkbox of forcing running that program with administration privileges  From now all shortcuts of the exe file will be fired with administration privileges

User · Answer

NOTE in recent VS versions  2015   it seems this extension no longer exists has this feature     You can also download VSCommands for VS2012 by Squared Infinity which has a feature to change it to run as admin  as well as some other cool bits and pieces     Update  One can install the commands from the Visual Studio menu bar using Tools- Extensions and Updates selecting Online and searching for vscommands where then one selects VSCommands for Visual Studio 20XX depending on whether using 2012 or 2013  or greater going forward  and download and install

User · Answer

VSCommands didn t work for me and caused a problem when I installed Visual Studio 2010 aside of Visual Studio 2012   After some experimentations I found the trick   Go to HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion AppCompatFlags Layers and add an entry with the name  C  Program Files  x86  Common Files Microsoft Shared MSEnv VSLauncher exe  and the value  RUNASADMIN     This should solve your issue  I ve also blogged about that

User · Answer

If you using Total Commander as I do  you should do the same for Total Commander to be run as admin always  Then you will be able to open sql file on double click in same SQL Server management instance  or to open any Visual Studio file on double click and not have multiple instances open   This Troubleshoot program adds registry value to HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion AppCompatFlags Layers for any program  so if you like to write it directly you can

User · Answer

Also  you can check the compatibility troubleshooting    Right-click on Visual Studio   select Troubleshoot compatibility  Select Troubleshoot Program  Check The program requires additional permissions  Click on Test the program  Wait for a moment until the program launch  Click Next  Select Yes  save these settings for this program   Wait for resolving the issue  Make sure the final status is fixed  Click Close       Check the detail steps  and other ways to always open VS as Admin at Visual Studio requires the application to have elevated permissions

User · Answer

I know this is a little late  but I just figured out how to do this by modifying  read   hacking   the manifest of the devenv exe file   I should have come here first because the stated solutions seem a little easier  and probably more supported by Microsoft      Here s how I did it    Create a project in VS called  Exe Manifests    I think any version will work  but I used 2013 Pro  Also  it doesn t really matter what you name it    Add existing item  to the project  browse to the Visual Studio exe  and click Okay  In my case  it was  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 12 0 Common7 IDE devenv exe   Double-click on the  devenv exe  file that should now be listed as a file in your project  It should bring up the exe in a resource editor  Expand the  RT MANIFEST  node  then double-click on  1  under that  This will open up the executable s manifest in the binary editor  Find the requestedExecutionLevel tag and replace  asInvoker  with  requireAdministrator   A la    lt requestedExecutionLevel level  requireAdministrator  uiAccess  false  gt  lt  requestedExecutionLevel gt  Save the file      You ve just saved the copy of the executable that was added to your project  Now you need to back up the original and copy your modified exe to your installation directory   As I said  this is probably not the right way to do it  but it seems to work  If anyone knows of any negative fallout or requisite wrist-slapping that needs to happen  please chime in

User · Answer

Visual Studio does elevate itself automatically if the project s application manifest specifies an administrative requestedExecutionLevel  so you just need to edit that  Visual Studio will detect that and relaunch itself as administrator when needed

User · Answer

On Windows 8 Start Menu select All Apps Right click on Visual Studio 2010 Icon Select Open File Location Right click on Visual Studio 2010 shortcut icon Click Advanced button Check the Run as Administrator checkbox Click OK

User · Answer

This is a copy of my answer to a similar post on SuperUser   Option 1 - Set VSLauncher exe and DevEnv exe to always run as admin  To have Visual Studio always run as admin when opening any  sln file    Navigate to C  Program Files  x86  Common Files Microsoft Shared MSEnv VSLauncher exe  Right-click on VSLauncher exe and choose Troubleshoot compatibility  Choose Troubleshoot program  Check off The program requires additional permissions and hit Next  Click the Test the program    button to launch VS  Click Next  then hit Yes  save these settings for this program  and then the close buton    To have Visual Studio always run as an admin when just opening visual studio directly  do the same thing to the DevEnv exe file s    These file are located at   Visual Studio 2010  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 10 0 Common7 IDE devenv exe  Visual Studio 2012  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 11 0 Common7 IDE devenv exe  Visual Studio 2013  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 12 0 Common7 IDE devenv exe  Visual Studio 2015  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 14 0 Common7 IDE devenv exe  Visual Studio 2017  C  Program Files  x86  Microsoft Visual Studio 2017  VS SKU  Common7 IDE devenv exe  Option 2 - Use VSCommands extension for Visual Studio  Install the free VSCommands extension for Visual Studio  it s in the Visual Studio Extensions Gallery  and then configure it to always have Visual Studio start with admin privileges by going to Tools -  VSCommands -  Options -  IDE Enhancements -  General and check off Always start Visual Studio with elevated permissions and click the Save button   Note  VSCommands is not currently available for VS 2015  but their site says they are working on updating it to support VS 2015   My Opinion  I prefer Option 2 because    it also allows you to easily turn off this functionality  VSCommands comes with lots of other great features so I always have it installed anyways  it s just easier to do than option 1

User · Answer

In Windows 8  amp  10  you have to right-click devenv exe and select  Troubleshoot compatibility       Select  Troubleshoot program  Check  The program requires additional permissions  Click  Next  Click  Test the program     Wait for the program to launch Click  Next  Select  Yes  save these settings for this program  Click  Close    If  when you open Visual Studio it asks to save changes to devenv sln  see this answer to disable it   Disable Visual Studio devenv solution save dialog    If you change your mind and wish to undo the  Run As Administrator  Compatibility setting  see the answer here  How to Fix Unrecognized Guid format in Visual Studio 2015

User · Answer

I found a simple way to do this on EightForums  Option 8   create a string value under HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion AppCompatFlags Layers  Set the name to the path to the program and the value to  RUNASDMIN  Next time you open the program it will open as an administrator   HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Windows NT CurrentVersion AppCompatFlags Layers       C   Program Files  x86   Microsoft Visual Studio 12 0  Common7  IDE  devenv exe    RUNASADMIN

[visual-studio] Can you force Visual Studio to always run as an Administrator in Windows 8?

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