Which Avast actions should pop up the UAC elevation prompt?

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

I have noticed that certain Avast actions, after it is already installed and running, require admin privileges and thus will bring up the UAC prompt dialog box that you need to click OK on to continue. The two examples I can think of are in the Avast UI screen when you want to either reset your settings to default or load your settings from a file, and when you go to repair the App through the ‘Apps and Features’ area in Windows. However, there are also other manual tasks that you can run without the UAC dialog box popping up, even with it on its Max setting, where such task will still run elevated in the Task manager. The one I tried manually was just checking for virus definitions, which brings up the Avast Installer process and runs elevated.

There are also other automatic tasks that run elevated, such as Avast Emergency Update (which runs every four hours) and Avast Overseer (which runs every 24 hours). I have brought my UAC settings back to its default setting, but even with it on its max setting, I imagine these would still run in the background as needed without the user having to Ok it manually each time. Some of the .exe files in the Avast folder in Program Files also have the Windows Admin shield on its icon, including AvEmUpdate.exe, but again this doesn’t ask the user for elevation permission even though it’s process runs elevated.

So, i’m curious as to which Avast actions, manual or automatic, that run elevated require the user to agree to the elevation request, aside from the two I listed above?

2

It is recommended that you install Avast as an Administrator.
I’ve never seen a request to grant access after following that direction.

https://d1ka0itfguscri.cloudfront.net/Lh/2024/01/02/16/49/cZVnDdVHa5N/preview.jpg

You’ll find those directions at: https://support.avast.com/en-us/article/install-free-antivirus/#pc

3

Ok. A couple of things

  1. Right clicking on the install file to Run as Administrator isn’t necessary. Whether you right click and “Run as Administrator” or just double click normally, you’ll still be prompted for the UAC escalation. I actually brought this up the last time this was brought up a few weeks back, and no one responded to that.

  2. This doesn’t answer my question. I was referring to actions or processes that happened after a full installation is completed (I even said so in my post). It makes sense that some Avast processes that run in the background already run elevated, as it’s hooked into Windows as a full service by that point and obviously needs to run things elevated and it wouldn’t make sense to bother the user for permission every single time it ran. But I noticed there are still some that do ask for permission, such as the examples I gave. I simply wanted to know which ones require user permission to elevate and which ones do not.