Zygor Client Requests Admin Privileges?

[hhubris]

I recently renewed my WoW subscription for WoD and grabbed the new updater. Why does the new one request admin privileges? The only directory it needs to manage on my computer is my WoW addons folder.

What else is it doing that it is triggering UAC?

Thanks
-HH

[ZG Support 1]

It uses the Java platform which has the potential to do all sorts of things on your computer. It's probably because of this that you get the UAC prompt. I've never understood what prompts the UAC and what doesn't. To me it seems like there's no rhyme or reason to it.

Another possibility is that it triggered because the new updater client also takes care of the guides for other games and the Wildstar game stores addons in the AppData folder of your C:/Users/<username> folder. That AppData folder is normally a hidden folder to protect program data so with the client needing to access the AppData folder to manage the Wildstar addon that could be causing the UAC trigger.

[Cartman]

I don't think it's the AppData folder that causes the UAC to pop up. The reason the AppData folder exists is to not have aplications save their settings to their program files folder, for which they would need admin privileges.

In the past even the Zygor Java updater ran without admin privileges.

This may have been changed to make it launch the games or to install addons even to unusual locations. If you for example install WoW into the program files folder and the WoW addons folder is inside this folder.

Windows even has problems accessing partitions that were not created by the windows installation you started. So if you have for example a D: drive that was created by some older windows your current windows will ask for admin rights everytime you want to save a file there.

Also I noticed that running the updater without admin privileges brings up the question to create the desktop icon on every start. So it's possible that applications have limited access to the desktop.
Even manually rearranging icons in the start menu brings up the UAC.

So the safe way for a launcher application is to ask for admin privileges. The Blizzard launcher and the updater of "the other guide" do that too.