Request UAC elevation from within a Python script

Question

I want my Python script to copy files on Vista  When I run it from a normal cmd exe window  no errors are generated  yet the files are NOT copied  If I run cmd exe  as administator  and then run my script  it works fine   This makes sense since User Account Control  UAC  normally prevents many file system actions   Is there a way I can  from within a Python script  invoke a UAC elevation request  those dialogs that say something like  such and such app needs admin access  is this OK     If that s not possible  is there a way my script can at least detect that it is not elevated so it can fail gracefully

User · Answer

Recognizing this question was asked years ago, I think a more elegant solution is offered on github by frmdstryr using his module pywinutils:

Excerpt:

import pythoncom
from win32com.shell import shell,shellcon

def copy(src,dst,flags=shellcon.FOF_NOCONFIRMATION):
    """ Copy files using the built in Windows File copy dialog

    Requires absolute paths. Does NOT create root destination folder if it doesn't exist.
    Overwrites and is recursive by default 
    @see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb775799(v=vs.85).aspx for flags available
    """
    # @see IFileOperation
    pfo = pythoncom.CoCreateInstance(shell.CLSID_FileOperation,None,pythoncom.CLSCTX_ALL,shell.IID_IFileOperation)

    # Respond with Yes to All for any dialog
    # @see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb775799(v=vs.85).aspx
    pfo.SetOperationFlags(flags)

    # Set the destionation folder
    dst = shell.SHCreateItemFromParsingName(dst,None,shell.IID_IShellItem)

    if type(src) not in (tuple,list):
        src = (src,)

    for f in src:
        item = shell.SHCreateItemFromParsingName(f,None,shell.IID_IShellItem)
        pfo.CopyItem(item,dst) # Schedule an operation to be performed

    # @see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb775780(v=vs.85).aspx
    success = pfo.PerformOperations()

    # @see sdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb775769(v=vs.85).aspx
    aborted = pfo.GetAnyOperationsAborted()
    return success is None and not aborted

This utilizes the COM interface and automatically indicates that admin privileges are needed with the familiar dialog prompt that you would see if you were copying into a directory where admin privileges are required and also provides the typical file progress dialog during the copy operation.

User · Answer

A variation on Jorenko s work above allows the elevated process to use the same console  but see my comment below    def spawn as administrator            Spawn ourself with administrator rights and wait for new process to exit         Make the new process use the same console as the old one            Raise Exception   if we could not get a handle for the new re-run the process           Raise pywintypes error   if we could not re-spawn         Return the exit code of the new process            or return None if already running the second admin process           pylint  disable no-name-in-module import-error     import win32event  win32api  win32process     import win32com shell shell as shell     if  --admin  in sys argv          return None     script   os path abspath sys argv 0       params       join  script    sys argv 1       --admin        SEE MASK NO CONSOLE   0x00008000     SEE MASK NOCLOSE PROCESS   0x00000040     process   shell ShellExecuteEx lpVerb  runas   lpFile sys executable  lpParameters params  fMask SEE MASK NO CONSOLE SEE MASK NOCLOSE PROCESS      hProcess   process  hProcess       if not hProcess          raise Exception  Could not identify administrator process to install drivers         It is necessary to wait for the elevated process or else        stdin lines are shared between 2 processes  they get one line each     INFINITE   -1     win32event WaitForSingleObject hProcess  INFINITE      exitcode   win32process GetExitCodeProcess hProcess      win32api CloseHandle hProcess      return exitcode

User · Answer

It seems there s no way to elevate the application privileges for a while for you to perform a particular task  Windows needs to know at the start of the program whether the application requires certain privileges  and will ask the user to confirm when the application performs any tasks that need those privileges  There are two ways to do this    Write a manifest file that tells Windows the application might require some privileges Run the application with elevated privileges from inside another program   This two articles explain in much more detail how this works   What I d do  if you don t want to write a nasty ctypes wrapper for the CreateElevatedProcess API  is use the ShellExecuteEx trick explained in the Code Project article  Pywin32 comes with a wrapper for ShellExecute   How  Something like this   When your program starts  it checks if it has Administrator privileges  if it doesn t it runs itself using the ShellExecute trick and exits immediately  if it does  it performs the task at hand   As you describe your program as a  script   I suppose that s enough for your needs   Cheers

User · Answer

This may not completely answer your question but you could also try using the Elevate Command Powertoy in order to run the script with elevated UAC privileges   http   technet microsoft com en-us magazine 2008 06 elevation aspx  I think if you use it it would look like  elevate python yourscript py

User · Answer

If your script always requires an Administrator s privileges then       runas  user Administrator  python your script py

User · Answer

Just adding this answer in case others are directed here by Google Search as I was  I used the elevate module in my Python script and the script executed with Administrator Privileges in Windows 10   https   pypi org project elevate

User · Answer

As of 2017  an easy method to achieve this is the following   import ctypes  sys  def is admin        try          return ctypes windll shell32 IsUserAnAdmin       except          return False  if is admin          Code of your program here else        Re-run the program with admin rights     ctypes windll shell32 ShellExecuteW None   runas   sys executable      join sys argv   None  1    If you are using Python 2 x  then you should replace the last line for   ctypes windll shell32 ShellExecuteW None  u runas   unicode sys executable   unicode     join sys argv    None  1    Also note that if you converted you python script into an executable file  using tools like py2exe  cx freeze  pyinstaller  then you should use sys argv 1   instead of sys argv in the fourth parameter   Some of the advantages here are    No external libraries required  It only uses ctypes and sys from standard library  Works on both Python 2 and Python 3  There is no need to modify the file resources nor creating a manifest file  If you don t add code below if else statement  the code won t ever be executed twice  You can get the return value of the API call in the last line and take an action if it fails  code  lt   32   Check possible return values here  You can change the display method of the spawned process modifying the sixth parameter    Documentation for the underlying ShellExecute call is here

User · Answer

This is mostly an upgrade to Jorenko s answer  that allows to use parameters with spaces in Windows  but should also work fairly well on Linux    Also  will work with cx freeze or py2exe since we don t use   file   but sys argv 0  as executable  import sys ctypes platform  def is admin        try          return ctypes windll shell32 IsUserAnAdmin       except          raise False  if   name         main          if platform system       Windows           if is admin                main sys argv 1            else                Re-run the program with admin rights  don t use   file   since py2exe won t know about it               Use sys argv 0  as script path and sys argv 1   as arguments  join them as lpstr  quoting each parameter or spaces will divide parameters             lpParameters                    Litteraly quote all parameters which get unquoted when passed to python             for i  item in enumerate sys argv 0                     lpParameters          item                    try                  ctypes windll shell32 ShellExecuteW None   runas   sys executable  lpParameters   None  1              except                  sys exit 1      else          main sys argv 1

User · Answer

The following example builds on MARTIN DE LA FUENTE SAAVEDRA s excellent work and accepted answer  In particular  two enumerations are introduced  The first allows for easy specification of how an elevated program is to be opened  and the second helps when errors need to be easily identified  Please note that if you want all command line arguments passed to the new process  sys argv 0  should probably be replaced with a function call  subprocess list2cmdline sys argv        usr bin env python3 import ctypes import enum import subprocess import sys    Reference    msdn microsoft com en-us library windows desktop bb762153 v vs 85  aspx     noinspection SpellCheckingInspection class SW enum IntEnum       HIDE   0     MAXIMIZE   3     MINIMIZE   6     RESTORE   9     SHOW   5     SHOWDEFAULT   10     SHOWMAXIMIZED   3     SHOWMINIMIZED   2     SHOWMINNOACTIVE   7     SHOWNA   8     SHOWNOACTIVATE   4     SHOWNORMAL   1   class ERROR enum IntEnum       ZERO   0     FILE NOT FOUND   2     PATH NOT FOUND   3     BAD FORMAT   11     ACCESS DENIED   5     ASSOC INCOMPLETE   27     DDE BUSY   30     DDE FAIL   29     DDE TIMEOUT   28     DLL NOT FOUND   32     NO ASSOC   31     OOM   8     SHARE   26   def bootstrap        if ctypes windll shell32 IsUserAnAdmin            main       else           noinspection SpellCheckingInspection         hinstance   ctypes windll shell32 ShellExecuteW              None               runas               sys executable              subprocess list2cmdline sys argv               None              SW SHOWNORMAL                   if hinstance  lt   32              raise RuntimeError ERROR hinstance     def main          Your Code Here     print input  Echo        if   name         main         bootstrap

User · Answer

You can make a shortcut somewhere and as the target use  python yourscript py then under properties and advanced select run as administrator    When the user executes the shortcut it will ask them to elevate the application

User · Answer

It took me a little while to get dguaraglia s answer working  so in the interest of saving others time  here s what I did to implement this idea   import os import sys import win32com shell shell as shell ASADMIN    asadmin   if sys argv -1     ASADMIN      script   os path abspath sys argv 0       params       join  script    sys argv 1      ASADMIN       shell ShellExecuteEx lpVerb  runas   lpFile sys executable  lpParameters params      sys exit 0

[python] Request UAC elevation from within a Python script?

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