Run games as administrator without password prompt

[Snake Hollywood]

My kids have steam installed on their computers and being a good security conscious parent, they only have standard windows user accounts, not admins.
But this constantly requires me to enter my administrator password so that they can play games. It seems to do this constantly for any game that uses battlelauncher, and some others, presumably when they need updates.

Is there any way to get round this? Setting the games to "Rus as administrator" is no help, as this still requires me to enter my password.

[Cathulhu]

Not without giving your kids administrative rights.

[LaGgIs]

You might want to tell us why you have a other account with out admin right and maybe we can found a other way to make it work bc for now you need the password for chaning anything on the pc and thats why you need to enter you password all the time

[Washell]

Is steam installed in program files? Moving it elsewhere might let you dodge the admin issue.

[Ashkon]

Originally posted by fauxtronic:

This really shouldn't happen on a modern Windows system. It's ultimately a design problem with any game that requires administrative rights because no game should require such privileges.

This. Windows teaches people bad habits. And undoing it is not easy.

If you are savvy you could write custom software that enters the password for them. But only if the detected software they are trying to launch is related to games (you could use the name of the process the games create for this). Which should not be to hard to accomplish if you have programming experience. Preferably store the password encrypted into the program and have it be decrypted only when it is needed (if you intend to make it copy and paste by itself. Make sure you clear the clipboard several times over after). Do not store the password in clear text on your program. Even better if you add some security measures so it cannot run on any other computer (a combination of IP-adress, MAC adress, Hardware ID's and the Windows Account name could be used. If it does not match then the software will not run and will delete itself from the computer).

I know someone who made special software for his little brother that would force him to learn math if he wanted to unlock the computer. It would also limit his gaming time and give very easy to understand instructions on how to save the game etc before it would forcefully log the kid out of the computer.

He kept updating it for a couple of years, increasing the math difficulty both on his own according to his little brothers grade. He also included a difficulty setting because eventually his little brother got interested and wanted harder math questions sometimes.

[Kargor]

I haven't seen games requiring admin privileges in many years; something is odd. And yes, my account is NOT an admin account -- I keep that entirely separate.

It used to be an issue back when game developers were still thinking "Win 9x", and refused to acknowledge that XP "Home" is an "NT"-derivative as well. However, even then, it was easily solved with some permission tweaking -- games wanted to store stuff in HKLM and/or the installation directory, for the most part. A few odd exceptions, like games trying to store stuff in C:, but those were exceptions.

[Snake Hollywood]

Originally posted by LaGgls:

You might want to tell us why you have a other account with out admin right and maybe we can found a other way to make it work bc for now you need the password for chaning anything on the pc and thats why you need to enter you password all the time

Giving children administrator rights is just asking for trouble, this means they can download an install anything, including malware, spyware, ransomware etc. So as I stated, since I am a responsible parent, I do not give them admin access. Most adults cannot be trusted with admin access.

[Snake Hollywood]

Originally posted by fauxtronic:

Originally posted by Say no to scam games like Atlas.:

This. Windows teaches people bad habits. And undoing it is not easy.

Nah, it doesn't. It used to in the pre-longhorn days. But it does not anymore.
It has a proper user accounts system now.

I only get asked for admin priveleges nowadays if I'm trying to install a driver or something like that.

If admin permissions are being requested only for a specific game, then it's likely a design problem with the game. It's either trying to perform a low-level task that shouldn't be required or is up to no good.

If admin permissions are being requested everytime someone tries to launch any game, then I would reinstall Windows because somebody has probably been tweaking under the hood (maybe to get an buggy or ancient game to run? something like that) and screwed up the permissions across the entire system.

I have 2 sons who use steam, both have this issue. Windows has been reinstalled on both systems several times since they have been using steam.

It primarily seems to be battle eye which requires the admin permission.

[Crystal Sharrd]

Originally posted by Snake Hollywood:

Originally posted by fauxtronic:

Nah, it doesn't. It used to in the pre-longhorn days. But it does not anymore.
It has a proper user accounts system now.

I only get asked for admin priveleges nowadays if I'm trying to install a driver or something like that.

If admin permissions are being requested only for a specific game, then it's likely a design problem with the game. It's either trying to perform a low-level task that shouldn't be required or is up to no good.

If admin permissions are being requested everytime someone tries to launch any game, then I would reinstall Windows because somebody has probably been tweaking under the hood (maybe to get an buggy or ancient game to run? something like that) and screwed up the permissions across the entire system.

I have 2 sons who use steam, both have this issue. Windows has been reinstalled on both systems several times since they have been using steam.

It primarily seems to be battle eye which requires the admin permission.

That could be it. BattlEye is anti-cheat software. It could be doing something that Windows wants Admin Rights for.

[Snake Hollywood]

as I mentioned, windows has been reinstalled several times since they started using Steam, they even have completely new computers since then, but I still need to enter my password whenever steam games updated

[Darren]

Anti-Cheat software is likely going to be the killer here. As in order to ensure no cheats are running it has to run with escalated permissions (otherwise the cheats could be running at a level it can't detect).

Good anti-cheat software will do this via a service which has adminstrator permissions so you only need normal permissions to run the game. But there are security risks from this around updates (hence why you might need admin rights to do those).

[Komrade]

Originally posted by Darren:

Anti-Cheat software is likely going to be the killer here. As in order to ensure no cheats are running it has to run with escalated permissions (otherwise the cheats could be running at a level it can't detect).

Yep, and pretty sure there's no workaround.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Use a host intrusion protection.
So things can be allowed, but others need granular permissions (paranoid mode).

Hide the question window with the password of that tool.
Havent used it for long, but comodo firewall had this.

[Snake Hollywood]

Originally posted by LaGgIs:

You might want to tell us why you have a other account with out admin right and maybe we can found a other way to make it work bc for now you need the password for chaning anything on the pc and thats why you need to enter you password all the time

I did already explain this in the original post, it is because they are child accounts and are thus standard users not administrators. Hopefully, I shouldn't have to explain why you should make kids administrators and why parental controls are a requirement.

[retrolost]

I am 16 and so my parents gave me a child account and i found a way to bypass that works for some games only, just outright reject it. it works for some games. hope this helps

[cangku00011]

fine...