Answer is here. This is default behavior for Windows Vista under the new
UAC scheme. If you have suggestions, I would send them to the User Account
team to make sure they're seen since Microsoft has consciously chosen to
restrict your access to using bug information and restrict's everyone's
access to the context of what bugs have been reported overall, what bugs
have been fixed, what bugs will be fixed, ect. You can contact them via
email on the blog site on the link below. Chris Corio is Program Manager
for the User Accounts Team.
See these for a video and complete explanation of your question.
Question
Can a non-admin user run an msi?
Answer
If you only install to locations where non-admins users have privileges,
then the answer is easy: yes.
If you install to locations such as program files or HKLM, then the answer
is -- they can with MSI if the package has been blessed by an admin to run
elevated. Otherwise attempts by the non-admin to write to program files are
going to fail. And additionally, a package can't self-elevate -- that would
be a security issue.
I have a msi that runs just fine under a restricted user account (member of
users group). This msi does not need admin rights to run under XP (all
changes made in user profile). Msi is signed. When I run this msi in Vista,
I get prompted for admin credentials.
Can anybody suggest where I should start looking into this problem?