How to run script with elevated privilege on windows

Thank you all for your reply. I have got my script working with the module/ script written by Preston Landers way back in 2010. After two days of browsing the internet I could find the script as it was was deeply hidden in pywin32 mailing list. With this script it is easier to check if the user is admin and if not then ask for UAC/ admin right. It does provide output in separate windows to find out what the code is doing. Example on how to use the code also included in the script. For the benefit of all who all are looking for UAC on windows have a look at this code. I hope it helps someone looking for same solution. It can be used something like this from your main script:-

import adminif not admin.isUserAdmin():        admin.runAsAdmin()

The actual code is:-

#!/usr/bin/env python# -*- coding: utf-8; mode: python; py-indent-offset: 4; indent-tabs-mode: nil -*-# vim: fileencoding=utf-8 tabstop=4 expandtab shiftwidth=4# (C) COPYRIGHT © Preston Landers 2010# Released under the same license as Python 2.6.5import sys, os, traceback, typesdef isUserAdmin():    if os.name == 'nt':        import ctypes        # WARNING: requires Windows XP SP2 or higher!        try:            return ctypes.windll.shell32.IsUserAnAdmin()        except:            traceback.print_exc()            print "Admin check failed, assuming not an admin."            return False    elif os.name == 'posix':        # Check for root on Posix        return os.getuid() == 0    else:        raise RuntimeError, "Unsupported operating system for this module: %s" % (os.name,)def runAsAdmin(cmdLine=None, wait=True):    if os.name != 'nt':        raise RuntimeError, "This function is only implemented on Windows."    import win32api, win32con, win32event, win32process    from win32com.shell.shell import ShellExecuteEx    from win32com.shell import shellcon    python_exe = sys.executable    if cmdLine is None:        cmdLine = [python_exe] + sys.argv    elif type(cmdLine) not in (types.TupleType,types.ListType):        raise ValueError, "cmdLine is not a sequence."    cmd = '"%s"' % (cmdLine[0],)    # XXX TODO: isn't there a function or something we can call to massage command line params?    params = " ".join(['"%s"' % (x,) for x in cmdLine[1:]])    cmdDir = ''    showCmd = win32con.SW_SHOWNORMAL    #showCmd = win32con.SW_HIDE    lpVerb = 'runas'  # causes UAC elevation prompt.    # print "Running", cmd, params    # ShellExecute() doesn't seem to allow us to fetch the PID or handle    # of the process, so we can't get anything useful from it. Therefore    # the more complex ShellExecuteEx() must be used.    # procHandle = win32api.ShellExecute(0, lpVerb, cmd, params, cmdDir, showCmd)    procInfo = ShellExecuteEx(nShow=showCmd,                              fMask=shellcon.SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS,                              lpVerb=lpVerb,                              lpFile=cmd,                              lpParameters=params)    if wait:        procHandle = procInfo['hProcess']            obj = win32event.WaitForSingleObject(procHandle, win32event.INFINITE)        rc = win32process.GetExitCodeProcess(procHandle)        #print "Process handle %s returned code %s" % (procHandle, rc)    else:        rc = None    return rcdef test():    rc = 0    if not isUserAdmin():        print "You're not an admin.", os.getpid(), "params: ", sys.argv        #rc = runAsAdmin(["c:\\Windows\\notepad.exe"])        rc = runAsAdmin()    else:        print "You are an admin!", os.getpid(), "params: ", sys.argv        rc = 0    x = raw_input('Press Enter to exit.')    return rcif __name__ == "__main__":    sys.exit(test())

in comments to the answer you took the code from someone says ShellExecuteEx doesn't post its STDOUT back to the originating shell. so you will not see "I am root now", even though the code is probably working fine.

instead of printing something, try writing to a file:

import osimport sysimport win32com.shell.shell as shellASADMIN = 'asadmin'if sys.argv[-1] != ASADMIN:    script = os.path.abspath(sys.argv[0])    params = ' '.join([script] + sys.argv[1:] + [ASADMIN])    shell.ShellExecuteEx(lpVerb='runas', lpFile=sys.executable, lpParameters=params)    sys.exit(0)with open("somefilename.txt", "w") as out:    print >> out, "i am root"

and then look in the file.

I found a very easy solution to this problem.

1. Create a shortcut for python.exe
2. Change the shortcut target into something like C:\xxx\...\python.exe your_script.py
3. Click "advance..." in the property panel of the shortcut, and click the option "run as administrator"

I'm not sure whether the spells of these options are right, since I'm using Chinese version of Windows.