Hi! UAC Pass aims to make UAC-free shortcuts.
It was made to reduce the hassle of UAC prompts for frequently used applications requiring elevation, without shutting down the UAC protection (UAC is a great step forward about security). UAC-free shortcuts are shortcuts pointing to scheduled tasks, these scheduled tasks being run with their creator's rights, it bypasses the prompt usually made by User Account Control.
Out of typical features related to scheduled tasks (session's start and multiple/single instance), I also implemented in 1.5 an easy way to use UAC Pass with programs located on a removable device such as a USB stick, it consists of storing into a batch file the relative path to shortcuts stored on the removable device that will produce UAC-free shortcuts on batch execution. With version 1.7 I added a list of freeing-tasks created, where you can launch and delete them, it aims to ease the USB Mode usage.
The script in itself works well under Windows 7 x64 and x86, theoretically all versions (Pro, family...), it should also work well under Vista despite I already get returns about something that doesn't work and which you can know about by reading the FAQ (Time pass and still no more return about Vista, as I don't have access to it, perhaps it was occasional bugs, or permanent ones, I can't know without Vista's users feedback).
It requires to be logged in with an administrative account,
It is fully portable,
It works with drag & drop, single or multiple files,
It can make shortcut to almost anything (not only applications),
it keeps shortcuts' parameters,
it can restore the original shortcut (and destroy the scheduled task & UAC-free shortcut),
it has support for command-line.
it has several working modes (Command Line, direct D&D onto uacpass.exe or a shortcut to it, or D&D over main gui).
It is useless for people that can't log in as administrators, it is also useless for people that want to make shortcuts that would bypass this UAC prompt under a common user account.
Despite it is only in English and in French, It should work with any localized Windows language (I would welcome feedback about pinning, or about non-ANSI characters in shortcut names).
I welcome any correction to English language.
About additional translations, I will welcome you to send me all translated variables and leave me update my program so it takes in account your language.
The source code is available and modifiable, but please, remember that UAC Pass itself is under Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND). If you wish to make a custom version, either to only change colors settings or to translate it in another language, please contact me.
Before asking anything, please, read UAC Pass inline help, it should cover everything.
Also read the main page and the FAQ. A changelog can be found in the UAC Pass sub-menus on the top left of the main page. You can come to my site to download the tool or its sources*. https://sites.google.com/site/freeavvarea/UACPass-en
*Thanks to UEZ, the source code is now only 3 files: the icon, the main au3 program, and a second au3 which contains every pictures as binary strings.
I'd like to thanks: (click on their names to see the pieces of code)
- taz742 (multiple files drag&drop)
- trancexx (drag&drop with elevation)
- UEZ (load image to/from memory, seriously, it's Enormous!) Obviously I didn't used the version linked, but the 14-01-2012 one, whatever, it fulfill its purpose!
- Allow2010 (I used and modified some of the task scheduler COM functions he made)
- KaFu (Thanks for the suggestions about UEZ and Allow2010 work)
Cheers! edit, 27 April 2012:
- Update to version 1.7a, compiled program and source code (re-updated links ^^').
This version correct a bug that was happening when you drag&drop some files onto UAC Pass GUI without the integrated tasks' list opened. Sorry, it happend because I only tested with this window opened...
It was a very basic error, I corrected it by adding at line 1260: GUISwitch($lat_win) edit, 12 March 2014:
Changed URLs to the site.
Note that compiled version as much as source code still have a pointer to the dead URL "freeavvarea.r00t.la" in the about pane.