Install without Admin Rights?

[Cmdr-Keene]

Would love for a standard user to be able to install PowerToys.

[enricogior]

Hi @LtCmdrKeene
we are working on it ;)

[cosminpolifronie]

Hello! Any updates or any way we could help?

[enricogior]

Hi @cosminpolifronie
this is in the pipeline but there were more urgent matters, so it got behind.
Making PT run without admin rights is simple (just a flag in the VS solution), but we want to add the ability to restarted with admin rights.
We need to add a menu item "Restart elevated" and add the code to restart with elevated privileges.
If you want to help, we would be happy to have your contribution!
Thanks.

[enricogior]

For the installer without admin rights we are considering to use MSIX and the Windows Store.
That requires some work in order to be able to register the PowerRename shell extension.

[Cmdr-Keene]

I don't want to clutter this conversation or waste anyone's time with chatter, but I'm curious what the use case for restarting PT as elevated would be.

[enricogior]

@LtCmdrKeene
to allow PowerToys modules to interact with windows that are running with elevated privileges.

[cosminpolifronie]

Hi @cosminpolifronie
this is in the pipeline but there were more urgent matters, so it got behind.
Making PT run without admin rights is simple (just a flag in the VS solution), but we want to add the ability to restarted with admin rights.
We need to add a menu item "Restart elevated" and add the code to restart with elevated privileges.
If you want to help, we would be happy to have your contribution!
Thanks.

I might be able to help with that but I'll have to look into the code to say for sure.

For the installer without admin rights we are considering to use MSIX and the Windows Store.
That requires some work in order to be able to register the PowerRename shell extension

I have no idea how to make such an installer, though.

[enricogior]

@cosminpolifronie
for the MSIX don't worry we will take care of it.

[crutkas]

@enricogior, we can install without admin now for 0.15, correct?

[enricogior]

@crutkas when installing with MSIX yes. Not with MSI since it still requires admin to write to C:/Program Files and to register the shell extension.

[bzoz]

MSIX built by current master can be installed by non-admin users.

[enricogior]

Fix available in v0.15.1 using the MSIX experimental installer https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/releases

[behlakhil]

Hi, this was closed with 0.15 but then MSIX installer was discontinued. This should be opened again.

[crutkas]

Good call

[crutkas]

Jay there is still more work to do.

[htcfreek]

Please implement a policy to prevent user installs / enforce system installs. This is a must have for companies using SCCM.

[KhazAkar]

Please implement a policy to prevent user installs / enforce system installs. This is a must have for companies using SCCM.

Why? Maybe as optional, but by default to have user installable package, eventually just like VSCode have - 2 separate installers

[htcfreek]

Please implement a policy to prevent user installs / enforce system installs. This is a must have for companies using SCCM.

Why? Maybe as optional, but by default to have user installable package, eventually just like VSCode have - 2 separate installers

Because if the admin manage and deploy the app system wide it will be a problem if the user updates/installs in its user profile.

Having two installers is a good idea and the gpo of course should be default to off/not restricted.

[ch3vr0n5]

I just copy/pasted the hardlink creation script into my installer script, for anyone who uses it

Unfortunately I don't have access to PowerShell at all, so after extracting everything manually I made a quick batch script that creates the hardlinks. Leaving it here for anyone else who may have this issue.

Crutkas: please don’t download random files :)

[kahfatt]

@crutkas I had my helpdesk install v0.67.0 (they have admin rights, I don't) but upon restarting my PC, the UAC prompt comes up again and I cannot run PT. Before I rebooted for the first time after the installation, I could see in PT settings that the "Run as admin" switch is off. Why is UAC prompt still appearing. I only want to run FancyZones. Is there a way to run PT (or just FancyZones) without local admin?

According to the post https://www.windowscentral.com/powertoys-no-longer-requires-you-run-it-admin
it's possible to run PT without admin rights.

[kahfatt]

@crutkas I had my helpdesk install v0.67.0 (they have admin rights, I don't) but upon restarting my PC, the UAC prompt comes up again and I cannot run PT. Before I rebooted for the first time after the installation, I could see in PT settings that the "Run as admin" switch is off. Why is UAC prompt still appearing. I only want to run FancyZones. Is there a way to run PT (or just FancyZones) without local admin?

According to the post https://www.windowscentral.com/powertoys-no-longer-requires-you-run-it-admin it's possible to run PT without admin rights.

Just found out that you just need to edit the json setting file in the app folder to make it run in user mode.

[crutkas]

You've always been able to run without admin, just things like FancyZones can't interact with elevated windows if that is part of your workflow.

We are quickly approaching the point of you won't need admin during install as well. That is what this work item is actually tracking.

[github-account1111]

I thought the whole point of this was to allow non-admin installs, specifically bullet point 1:

Be able to install PowerToys without UAC elevation

And yet I'm neither able to install the Store nor the Github version.
What was the point of whatever was done in that link then?

[crutkas]

That is one part but now we have the move from machine wide and per user installer flows and upgrading.

It is not as easy as flipping a switch

[treysis]

I guess this can be closed now?

[kahfatt]

Yes

…

On Fri, Apr 7, 2023, 7:24 PM treysis ***@***.***> wrote: I guess this can be closed now? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#411 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ATUR253UPMOC6DRGE3A3FZLW772QRANCNFSM4IYO5BIA> . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[raislallmohamed]

After waiting (patiently) for months, today, I was finally able to install PowerToys and start using FancyZones (among other things) without admin rights on my laptop. Thanks for making this possible! :-)

[CaptainBalou]

After waiting (patiently) for months, today, I was finally able to install PowerToys and start using FancyZones (among other things) without admin rights on my laptop. Thanks for making this possible! :-)

Hello @raislallmohamed ,

how did you do that? After launching the installer I immediately have to give some admin credentials to proceed. I really curious how to get this done without.

[raislallmohamed]

After waiting (patiently) for months, today, I was finally able to install PowerToys and start using FancyZones (among other things) without admin rights on my laptop. Thanks for making this possible! :-)

Hello @raislallmohamed ,

how did you do that? After launching the installer I immediately have to give some admin credentials to proceed. I really curious how to get this done without.

Hi @CaptainBalou,

I used the per-user installer (v0.69.0), which can be found here (below "via GitHub with EXE [Recommended]").

Let me know if this also works for you.

[CaptainBalou]

After waiting (patiently) for months, today, I was finally able to install PowerToys and start using FancyZones (among other things) without admin rights on my laptop. Thanks for making this possible! :-)

Hello @raislallmohamed ,
how did you do that? After launching the installer I immediately have to give some admin credentials to proceed. I really curious how to get this done without.

Hi @CaptainBalou,

I used the per-user installer (v0.69.0), which can be found here (below "via GitHub with EXE [Recommended]").

Let me know if this also works for you.

Hey @raislallmohamed ,

I havent realized there is a user installer. So I took the wrong installer. Worked perfectly with the user installer. Thanks for your reply.

Regards
Marco

[Bruceforce]

Is it intended that no right-click / context menu items are added (like for file locksmith, image resizer, powerrename, etc.) when using the User-Installer or is this a bug?

[crutkas]

Fixed in 0.69 which was released in the start of April 2023.

[TobyBCC]

@crutkas
I'm trying to install MS PowerToys using winget as a standard user and as soon as I run the command in cmd it pops up asking for UAC.

I notice that there is a --scope feature and so I added "--scope user" and it says there is "No applicable installer found".

So it looks like we are not able to install without admin credentials via the MS Store.
I have a requirement to deploy it via Winget in our environment as the MS Store is blocked via GPO and Winget will allow us to deploy it in a way that the app auto-updates for our users.

Are you able to add the User installer as an alternate scope in the MS Store please?

[cah-craig-vollmar]

I downloaded the latest PowerToysUserSetup-0.76.2-x64.exe installer, but it still requires admin rights to install. Log attached. Please advise.

powertoys-bootstrapper-msi-0.76.2_20240105090722.log

[bloodgain]

I downloaded the latest PowerToysUserSetup-0.76.2-x64.exe installer, but it still requires admin rights to install. Log attached. Please advise.

powertoys-bootstrapper-msi-0.76.2_20240105090722.log

I hadn't updated from 0.76.1, so I ran the installer manually to update and didn't have any issues.

Looking at your log, it doesn't appear to fail until it tries to apply the package. When you first run the installer, click the Options button and ensure that the path to AppData\Local is in your user account folder. The log shows the user folder for "first.last", so unless you modified the log file to hide your username, I doubt that's correct.

[cah-craig-vollmar]

I downloaded the latest PowerToysUserSetup-0.76.2-x64.exe installer, but it still requires admin rights to install. Log attached. Please advise.
powertoys-bootstrapper-msi-0.76.2_20240105090722.log

I hadn't updated from 0.76.1, so I ran the installer manually to update and didn't have any issues.

Looking at your log, it doesn't appear to fail until it tries to apply the package. When you first run the installer, click the Options button and ensure that the path to AppData\Local is in your user account folder. The log shows the user folder for "first.last", so unless you modified the log file to hide your username, I doubt that's correct.

I modified the log to hide my user name.