Problem
Most of my setups for tools, etc. are stored on my server. When installing them over a network share, an UAC prompt pops up, I confirm it and the installation starts. But sometimes an error occurs telling me, that it’s an illegal drive letter or that some files are missing. When trying the same after copying the setup to a local drive everything works fine.
Solution
UAC is the evildoer in this case. When confirming the UAC prompt, Vista logs again into the system, but with more rights. In this process a lot of the user specific data will be transferred to the new session, but not the existing network connections. Thus a setup, which has been started over the network, doesn’t anymore see the folder where it was started from.
This behavior can be changed with a registry key:
- Open regedit.exe
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem
- Create a new DWORD value named EnableLinkedConnections
- Set the value to 1
Now the administrator session uses the same network conections as the standard user. You have to restart the system for the changes to take effect.
