Elevating process via ShellExecuteInfo - Infinite shells?

Question

I followed this article for elevating a process, however in my code below (pretty much a copy currently), when debugging, I get an infinite number of shells being created. The line it happens on is indicated.

I've looked at the MSDN article here but this hasn't given me much insight. Please advise what I'm doing wrong?

I'm new to c++.

wchar_t szPath[MAX_PATH];
if (GetModuleFileName(NULL, szPath, ARRAYSIZE(szPath)))
{
    // Launch itself as admin
    SHELLEXECUTEINFO sei = { sizeof(sei) };
    sei.lpVerb = L"runas";
    sei.lpFile = szPath;
    sei.hwnd = NULL;
    sei.nShow = SW_NORMAL;
    if (!ShellExecuteEx(&sei)) //get infinite shells here
    {
        DWORD dwError = GetLastError();
        if (dwError == ERROR_CANCELLED)
        {
            // The user refused to allow privileges elevation.
            std::cout << "User did not allow elevation" << std::endl;
        }
    }
    else
    {
        //other lines of code omitted.
    }       
}

It looks like you launch a copy of yourself, which launches a copy of itself, which launches .... — Roger Rowland, Aug 05 '13 at 12:14

MiMo · Accepted Answer · 2013-08-06T14:24:02.850

2

Roger is right: you are launching a copy of the program that launches a copy of the program etc. etc. - what is missing is the IsAppRunningAsAdminMode() function from the article you are linking: you should call it first and then try to launch a new elevated copy of the program only if it returns false - i.e. only if the current execution program is not elevated.

edited Aug 06 '13 at 14:24

answered Aug 05 '13 at 14:58

MiMo

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Ok thanks. I tried the below next, but the "fIsRunAsAdmin" is marked as undefined?? `IsAppRunningAsAdminMode(); if (fIsRunAsAdmin = false){ //elevate process } else { //do nothing since process already elevated }` – unseen_rider Aug 05 '13 at 19:31
@NickProwse: did you copy the function itself from the article into your source code? – MiMo Aug 06 '13 at 14:27
1

@NickProwse: `fIsRunAsAdmin = false` assigns `false` to `fIsRunAsAdmin` - what you want is `fIsRunAdAdmin == false` - or better `!fIsRunAsAdmin` – MiMo Aug 06 '13 at 14:28
Yes I copied the function from the article. Ok I've now change it to `fIsRunAdAdmin == false` I still get `fIsRunAsAdmin` being marked as undefined though? – unseen_rider Aug 06 '13 at 16:11
1

Did you define that variable? You should have something like `bool fIsRunAdAdmin = IsAppRunningAsAdminMode();` in your code. – MiMo Aug 06 '13 at 16:13

Elevating process via ShellExecuteInfo - Infinite shells?

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