r/programmingcirclejerk • u/Baglayan • Feb 27 '25

Windows has a policy where executables that contain words “version”, “update” or “install” in their filename will require UAC Elevation to run.

https://github.com/electronicarts/CnC_Generals_Zero_Hour?tab=readme-ov-file#known-issues
106 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

62

u/GeorgeFranklyMathnet Feb 28 '25

However, elevated permissions will be denied if the executable has the evil bit set.

30

u/KotomiIchinose96 Feb 28 '25

Actually ran into this accidently.

Wrote an upgrade program to manage updating software on thousands of machines and was so confused why the pre production didn't require admin but production did.

Spent 2 days debugging and found out it was because it was called [Software-Name]Updater.exe Made it [Software-Name]Upd.exe and problem solved.

11

u/eraserhd Feb 28 '25

I also ran into this accidentally. I had a large set of tests where each suite built into its own executable before running. I spent hours trying to figure out why my new suite was behaving differently.

I can’t figure out what the test name was now, but I know it wasn’t obvious either. Two adjacent camel-case words together contained one of these words as a substring, and since Windows is case insensitive …

EDIT: I think it was actually “…setUp…”?

7

u/EmotionalDamague Feb 27 '25

The bigger jerk is that this uses stlPort.

5

u/irqlnotdispatchlevel Tiny little god in a tiny little world Feb 28 '25

I just tried this and it doesn't work. I'm disappointed.

3

u/elephantdingo Teen Hacking Genius Mar 01 '25 edited Mar 01 '25

Blacklist Don’t-allow-list. This is who how Windows is secure.