7zip Self Extracting Archive (SFX) without administrator privileges

Question

I use 7zip to create the SFX as follows:

7z.exe a -r archive.7z *

Then I do a binary copy with the 7zS.sfx file (used to create a self extracti

Answer 1

You can embed a manifest file in the original 7zs.sfx that informs Windows to run the extractor with the same access token as the parent process. Which will cause the self extractor to run as a normal user if that is what the user is login as.

The following link describes how to embed a manifest file in an executable using Visual Studio 2005, but the same process applies in later versions. https://support.microsoft.com/kb/944276

Once you have embedded the manifest file that sets the "requestedExecutionLevel" to "asInvoker", any self extracting archieve created in the normal way with the modified 7sz.sfx will not require administrator privileges.