Windows UAC Elevation Skill

When executing commands on Windows that require administrative privileges (e.g., registry modifications under HKLM, service controls, system-wide process termination, or security configuration changes) from a standard/non-elevated runner, follow these rules to prevent silent execution failure.

The Core Problem

1. Detached UAC Session: Any process started with -Verb RunAs runs in a separate security context. The parent standard-user runner (IDE) cannot capture its stdout/stderr. Spawning the wrapper is successful (ExitCode: 0), but the inner action may have crashed.
2. Double-Parsing of Quotes: Spawning powershell.exe -Command "<admin command>" elevations mangles nested quotes, leading to silent syntax crashes inside the elevated window (which closes instantly).

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Required Execution Protocol

Rule 1: Prefer Elevated CMD over PowerShell

For standard system tasks, always wrap execution in cmd.exe instead of powershell.exe. Use the native system tools directly:

• Registry Writes: Use reg.exe inside cmd.exe /c
• Service Management: Use net.exe or sc.exe inside cmd.exe /c
• Process Killing: Use taskkill.exe inside cmd.exe /c

Rule 2: Concrete Syntax Patterns

A. Registry Modifications

Start-Process cmd.exe -ArgumentList "/c reg add `"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Path\To\Key`" /v `"ValueName`" /t REG_SZ /d `"ValueData`" /f" -Verb RunAs -Wait

Start-Process cmd.exe -ArgumentList "/c reg delete `"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Path\To\Key`" /f" -Verb RunAs -Wait

B. Service Control

Start-Process cmd.exe -ArgumentList "/c net stop `"ServiceName`" & sc config `"ServiceName`" start= disabled" -Verb RunAs -Wait

C. Force Process Kill

Start-Process cmd.exe -ArgumentList "/c taskkill /F /IM `"ProcessName.exe`"" -Verb RunAs -Wait

Rule 3: Post-Execution Verification

Because UAC prompts always return ExitCode: 0 to the non-elevated IDE, you must never assume the command succeeded.

• Immediately execute a follow-up, read-only query (e.g., reg query, Get-Service, or Get-Process) in your standard user shell to verify that the state change has actually been applied.