README

scrunas

scrunas is a Windows console (text-based, command-line) program that enables, disables, or displays the status of the Run as administrator setting for a Windows shortcut (.lnk) file.

AUTHOR

Bill Stewart - bstewart at iname dot com

LICENSE

scrunas is covered by the GNU Public License (GPL). See the file LICENSE for details.

USAGE

Command-line parameters, except for the account name, are case-sensitive.

scrunas [[--enable | --disable] [--force]] filename

PARAMETERS

Specify --enable (or -e) to enable the Run as administrator setting, or specify --disable (or -d) to disable the setting. The --force (or -f) option updates the shortcut (.lnk) file even if the requested setting is already configured.

Omit --enable (-e) or --disable (-d) to display the current state of the Run as administrator option for the shortcut (.lnk) file.

The --quiet (or -q) option prevents output.

EXIT CODES

If you omit --enable (-e) or --disable (-d), the program will exit with an exit code of 1 if the Run as administrator setting is enabled for the shortcut file, or 0 otherwise. Any other exit code indicates an error.

If you specify either --enable (-e) or --disable (-d), the program will exit with an exit code of 0 for success, or non-zero for an error.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

See Raymond Chen's blog posting:

How do I mark a shortcut file as requiring elevation? (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20071219-00/?p=241033

At the top of that post, Raymond writes:

Specifying whether elevation is required is typically something that is the responsibility of the program. This is done by adding a requestedExecutionLevel element to your manifest. ... But if the program you're running doesn't have such a manifest--maybe it's an old program that you don't have any control over--you can create a shortcut to the program and mark the shortcut as requiring elevation.

He's right, of course: The application should have a manifest that says elevation is required. But for those edge cases (such as an installer for an old program that creates shortcuts), you can use scrunas to set the Run as administrator option for shortcut (.lnk) files where needed.