Development Team Blog

UAC, short for User Access Control, the feature built in Microsoft Windows Vista and higher is turned off by a number of users and developers because they do not like that the operating system asks for permission to write or access certain areas of their environment. Building your applications you are however advised not to do this because sooner or later you will install your not UAC compliant application at a UAC controlled PC and that is not goo.

How can you find out if UAC is enabled or disabled? With a bit of googling I found out that the value is stored in the registry under:

Code:

SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

With this knowledge I was able to write the following test routine.

Code:

Class cUACTester Is A cObject
    Function IsUACOn Returns Boolean
        Handle hoRegistry
        String sKey
        Boolean bKeyExists bKeyOpened bValueExists bUACOn
        DWord dwValue
        
        If (SysConf (SYSCONF_OS_MAJOR_REV) >= 6 and SysConf (SYSCONF_OS_MINOR_REV) >= 0) Begin    
            Get Create (RefClass (cRegistry)) to hoRegistry
            Set pfAccessRights of hoRegistry to KEY_READ
            Set phRootKey of hoRegistry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
            
            Move "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" to sKey
            
            Get KeyExists of hoRegistry sKey to bKeyExists
            If (bKeyExists) Begin
                Get OpenKey of hoRegistry sKey to bKeyOpened
                If (bKeyOpened) Begin
                    Get ValueExists of hoRegistry "EnableLUA" to bValueExists
                    If (bValueExists) Begin
                        Get ReadDword of hoRegistry "EnableLUA" to dwValue
                        Move (dwValue = 1) to bUACOn
                    End
                    Send CloseKey of hoRegistry
                End
            End            
            Send Destroy of hoRegistry
        End
        
        Function_Return bUACOn
    End_Function
End_Class

To complete the test I wrote the following code that shows how you call above routine:

Code:

Procedure TestUACOnOff Global
    Handle hoUACTester
    Boolean bIsOn
    
    Get Create (RefClass (cUACTester)) to hoUACTester
    Get IsUACOn of hoUACTester to bIsOn
    If (not (bIsOn)) Begin
        Send Stop_Box "TSSSK, you turned off UAC, we will now notify Microsoft about your misbehavior..."
    End
    Else Begin
        Send Info_Box "To all: We have found a true Microsoft believer!"
    End
    Send Destroy of hoUACTester
End_Procedure

Send TestUACOnOff