Ranorex administrative privileges

[Hamed.S]

Hallo,
Currently I am facing following problem:
We are going to use Ranorex Agent on a Windows 10 Machine, but unluckily I have no administrative privileges.
According to my research, it is NOT possible to run Ranorex Agent without the proper privileges but I have found a non technical workaround for that problem.

Now the remaining problem and question is, if there is any need for administrative privileges on the machine that runs Ranorex Studio.

My idea is basically to work with a non admin account on a machine with Ranorex Studio and use an other account with the right privileges to run Ranorex Agent. Something like that.. more or less

Thanks in advance
sincerely
Hamed

[Support Team]

Hello Hamed,

I’m afraid there’s currently no way to start the Ranorex Agent without administrative privileges due to the following reasons (independent of the operating system):

• UIAccess (for example, this is needed for automating Universal Windows Platform Apps)
• Execution of mobile tests (especially for instrumentation of apps during runtime)
• Memory access and data exchange between the Ranorex Studio and Agent

There’s a possibility that the Ranorex Agent can be started without admin rights in the future. This also depends on how many users request such a functionality. I would suggest voting for the corresponding feature request on our Uservoice Platform. The more users vote for a feature, the more likely it will be considered for implementation.

In general, Ranorex Studio does not require administrator rights. Administrator rights are only required for automating applications which themselves run with administrator rights. Additionally, administrator rights may be required for installing Ranorex and automating system dialogs/applications (depending on the local security settings).

I hope this information will help you.

Best Regards,
Johannes

[rappeldoorn]

Hi Johannes,

We have also a problem with administrator rights with Ranorex on a Windows10 workstation.

When we run a recording module, then there is no problem at all, but when we run the same recording module within the Testsuite then we get a popup with the message that Ranorex must run as administrator.
That is verry odd because in the header off Ranorex you can see that Ranorex is already running under Administror.

Please look at the attachemend.

Please help us out

Kind regards Rob Appeldoorn

[ahoisl]

This notification usually pops up on Win 8 and 10 when you start Ranorex using the integrated debugger and the debugger cannot attach to the started process because of Windows security rights.

There are usually three ways on how to not get that dialog:

1. Start Ranorex Studio as administrator
2. Not use the debugger (see here on how to switch the debugger on/off)
3. If you are not automating Windows store apps, disable the Ranorex advanced setting "Use UiaLauncher to elevate privileges for processes started by tools" (see here). This will reduce the security privileges the automating process is started with

You said that you already started Ranorex Studio as Administrator? What happens when that dialog pops up and you hit restart - does it work after that?

Regards,
Alex
Ranorex Team

[Florian22]

I also not a big fan of using a machine with admin privilege or grand admin rights everytime I run it.
I would be happy to see a change here in the future.

[ahoisl]

I also not a big fan of using a machine with admin privilege or grand admin rights everytime I run it.
I would be happy to see a change here in the future.

Unfortunately, this is not a Ranorex limitation, but a limitation of the Windows operating system and the debugger, respectively.
Please, see my previous post on how to avoid the need for admin privileges, thank you!

Regards,
Alex
Ranorex Team

[johnsonmax007]

Windows have upgraded its UAC from the days of Vista and 7. In old days of XP and others it was relatively easy to do this but now you need to contact your administrator to do it. A bit of letdown but still a security feature none the less.