Is there some benefit to running as administrator?

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cabbage
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2022 2:51 pm

Is there some benefit to running as administrator?

Post by cabbage »

I disabled the User Account Control popup ("Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to this computer?") using the instructions below and wondering if there is some reason why I would want to run as administrator, and if so can I make it do that automatically every time instead of getting the warning?

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4389&p=10640&hilit= ... rol#p10640

1.4.1.1009
win 8.1
raccoon
Posts: 1017
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:24 am

Re: Is there some benefit to running as administrator?

Post by raccoon »

There are no benefits to running Everything as Administrator (that I'm aware of), but countless problems and security risk that it causes. The strongly recommended configuration is to run Everything Service, and allowing the interface to run as a normal user (not As Administrator). Doing so also presents no UAC upon subsequent startups as the registered Service provides access elevation Everything needs to index system disks.

The reason the option to run as an administrator exists is if you're working on a corporate workstation that prevents running the Everything Service, or perhaps other such scenarios. But doing so prevents a lot of Preview handlers from working, and any file opened or program launched from Everything will inherit Administrator permissions, which is unsafe.

I think @void is leaning strongly towards eliminating the option to run Everything as Administrator from the options UI to prevent people from getting into binds, as it is one of the most frequent help issues encountered.
void
Developer
Posts: 16683
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2009 11:31 pm

Re: Is there some benefit to running as administrator?

Post by void »

I highly recommend running Everything as a standard user:
  • In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
  • Click the General tab on the left.
  • Check Store settings and data in %APPDATA%\Everything.
  • Uncheck Run as administrator.
  • Check Everything Service. (Please make sure this is tick-checked and not square-checked)
  • Click OK.
  • Exit Everything (right click the Everything tray icon and click Exit).
  • Restart Everything.
Please make sure Everything is running as a standard user:
  • Right click your Everything.exe or a shortcut to Everything
  • Click Properties.
  • Click the Compatibility tab.
  • Uncheck Run this program as an administrator.
  • Click OK.


To answer your question, running Everything 1.4 as an administrator is slightly faster at indexing and monitoring changes:

1) Pipes are slow.
Communication between the Everything Service and Everything Search client is slow.
This means Everything will detect and process updates slightly slower vs running as an admin.

2) More ram usage during indexing.
The Everything Service will use additional RAM when indexing.
Indexing should only occur once.



Running Everything as an administrator has no effect on search performance.


The additional indexing ram usage with the Everything Service will be significantly reduced in Everything 1.5.
The slow updating with the Everything Service in Everything 1.5 will not be noticed as the updates occur in the background.
David.P
Posts: 197
Joined: Fri May 29, 2020 3:22 pm

Re: Is there some benefit to running as administrator?

Post by David.P »

Hello all,
void wrote: Sun Mar 20, 2022 9:48 am I highly recommend running Everything as a standard user:
  • In Everything, from the Tools menu, click Options.
  • Click the General tab on the left.
  • Check Store settings and data in %APPDATA%\Everything.
  • Uncheck Run as administrator.
  • Check Everything Service. (Please make sure this is tick-checked and not square-checked)
  • Click OK.
  • Exit Everything (right click the Everything tray icon and click Exit).
  • Restart Everything.
I tried this a couple of times. However, after each restart the options look like this, and Everything seems to run as administrator again:

Image

What could be causing this?
horst.epp
Posts: 1443
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 3:24 pm

Re: Is there some benefit to running as administrator?

Post by horst.epp »

May be you have set the option "Run the program as administrator"
under Properties / Compatibility of the Everything64.exe file.
David.P
Posts: 197
Joined: Fri May 29, 2020 3:22 pm

Re: Is there some benefit to running as administrator?

Post by David.P »

Ok, will check
raccoon
Posts: 1017
Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2018 1:24 am

Re: Is there some benefit to running as administrator?

Post by raccoon »

One possible solution is to delete all *Everything*.lnk from the Start menu / Desktop. This seems to be a solution for some. I don't know why.

I had this problem happen to me a 2 years ago with v1.4 and the only solution I could come up with was complete uninstall and erasure, then installing it fresh again. I think, possibly, installing the Shortcut menus while running As Administrator causes a permanent "Run As Administrator" condition. Maybe.
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