Windows Developer Power Tools

17.4 Highlighting Explorer Windows’ Security Privileges Using PrivBar

You’re trying to do the conscientious thing and develop your software as a non-Administrator. You might even be using a tool like MakeMeAdmin.cmd, discussed in the next article, to give you quick access to the occasional command window running in the Administrator context. This means you can spawn multiple copies of Explorer as both non-privileged and privileged users, enabling you to do your regular tasks as well as Administrator-based tasks such as configuring IIS web sites.

But here’s the hitch: how can you tell which contexts those Explorer sessions are running in? You don’t want to use the Administrator-context Explorer for basic tasks, but it’s hard to keep track of which window is which.

Aaron Margosis, a member of Microsoft’s .NET Security team, has created a terrific utility called PrivBar that can help. PrivBar adds a new toolbar to your Explorer windows that graphically displays each session’s privilege level.

PrivBar at a Glance
Tool	PrivBar
Version covered	1.0.2.1 (DLL version)
Home page	http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/archive/2004/07/24/195350.aspx
Power Tools page	http://www.windevpowertools.com/tools/98
Summary	Lets you immediately see each Explorer window’s privilege level
License type	Freeware
Online resources	Author’s blog
Related tools in this book	MakeMeAdmin.cmd

Getting Started

PrivBar is a DLL that you download ...