Run Command as administrator in PowerShell script. UAC

Question

OK here is my issue:

I am trying to run a script remotely on a server.

I am an administrator on both boxes, firewall exceptions are in place, remote admin is enabled, and everything else looks good that i can see.

invoke-command -ComputerName $ComputerName -ScriptBlock `
{
    cd C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\; 
    ./appcmd.exe ADD vdir /app.name:<SiteName>/ /path:/<VDir Name> /physicalPath:<Path to files>
}

I keep getting the following error in return

ERROR ( hresult:80070005, message:Failed to commit configuration changes. Access is denied.

The server it is trying to run on is a server 2k8 R2 box and I am thinking the issue is a UAC problem. Is there anyway to get this to run as administrator without having to click yes on a UAC box?

This piece of code will eventually become a script that will have to be completely automated.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

OK. After some research and testing I figured out the issue. After disabling UAC and the firewall and the script still not working I dug a little deeper and discovered that the main issue was the way invoke-command runs the commands. it uses the credentials of the person running the script to authenticate to the server then tries to use another account to run the permissions or lowers the privileges of the user so that certain commands cannot be run.

I added the -Credentials switch to the invoke command and everything is working great now. Corrected code sample below:

$user = New-Object Management.Automation.PSCredential("$UserName", $securePassword)
invoke-command -ComputerName $ComputerName -Credential $user -ScriptBlock ` 
{ 
    cd C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\;  
    ./appcmd.exe ADD vdir /app.name:<SiteName>/ /path:/<VDir Name> /physicalPath:<Path to files> 
} 

Answer 2

This seems to indicate that you need to ensure you are a local admin on the remote machine (although admittedly this is for WMI specifically). According to this you can change a registry key to stop UAC applying to remote logons for administrators (search for LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy). That shouldn't disable UAC just not filter the token if you use powershell/WMI remotely with an administrator account.

Answer 3

Set the option "EnableLUA" (DWORD value) found in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System to 0 and reboot.

This will disable UAC without a problem, I would do it for all your users, whether with or without permission is up to you, because the vista UAC is so horrid that I do believe the less people that have it on the better (at least in vista ) they are. Thsi trick also works in Win7 too.

Have fun with my registry trick :)

P.S.: As it turns out SO is censoring comments that show how to disable UAC as far as my post/thread with the above answer is concerned (a diligent answer was removed).

Answer 4

Is there anyway to get this to run as administrator without having to click yes on a UAC box?

If this were possible it would entirely defeat the point of UAC.

Thus, it would appear your only real solution is to disable UAC on the box.