Detect if program is running with full administrator rights

19
votes

I need to determine if my program is running with full administrator rights. By that I mean if uac is turned on (for win vista/7) that I need to determine if the program actually has admin rights (like if the user right clicked and selected "run as administator") and not limited by uac. How do I do this in C++?

2
c++winapiuacdetectadministrator
Don't put [tags] in the subject line. That is what the Tags are for. – abelenky
You can just try doing the operation you need the rights for. – ruslik
possible duplicate of How to check if a process has elevated privileges in windows 7 using native C++ ? – Kate Gregory
possible duplicate of How to check if a process has the administrative rights – CinCout

2 Answers

12
votes

Other alternatives are: IsUserAnAdmin or AccessCheck

Checking the TOKEN_ELEVATION* stuff in the token is not required for testing the current process but it is useful if you need to find out if the user could elevate because they have a split token etc.

0
votes

An expansion on Anders' answer for those (like me) who are less Windows literate:

    BOOL isMember;
    PSID administratorsGroup = NULL;
    SID_IDENTIFIER_AUTHORITY SIDAuthNT =
        SECURITY_NT_AUTHORITY;

    if (!AllocateAndInitializeSid(&SIDAuthNT, 2,
        SECURITY_BUILTIN_DOMAIN_RID, DOMAIN_ALIAS_RID_ADMINS,
        0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0,
        &administratorsGroup))
    {
        throw(oops_t(GetLastError(), "AllocateAndInitializeSid"));
    }

    if (!CheckTokenMembership(nullptr, administratorsGroup, &isMember))
    {
        throw(oops_t(GetLastError(), "CheckTokenMembership"));
    }

    if (!isMember)
    {
        throw(oops_t(ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED, "Test for Admin privileges"));
    }