How to run python script with elevated privilege on windows

Question

I am writing a pyqt application which require to execute admin task. I would prefer to start my script with elevate privilege. I am aware that this question is asked many times in SO or in other forum. But the solution people are suggesting is to have a look at this SO question Request UAC elevation from within a Python script?

However, I am unable to execute the sample code given in the link. I have put this code on top of the main file and tried to execute it.

import os
import sys
import win32com.shell.shell as shell
ASADMIN = 'asadmin'

if sys.argv[-1] != ASADMIN:
    script = os.path.abspath(sys.argv[0])
    params = ' '.join([script] + sys.argv[1:] + [ASADMIN])
    shell.ShellExecuteEx(lpVerb='runas', lpFile=sys.executable, lpParameters=params)
    sys.exit(0)
print "I am root now."

It actually ask permission to elevate but print line never get executed. Somebody can help me to run the above code successfully. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Thank you all for your reply. I have got my script working with the module/ script written by Preston Landers way back in 2010. After two days of browsing the internet I could find the script as it was was deeply hidden in pywin32 mailing list. With this script it is easier to check if the user is admin and if not then ask for UAC/ admin right. It does provide output in separate windows to find out what the code is doing. Example on how to use the code also included in the script. For the benefit of all who all are looking for UAC on windows have a look at this code. I hope it helps someone looking for same solution. It can be used something like this from your main script:-

import admin
if not admin.isUserAdmin():
        admin.runAsAdmin()

The actual code is:-

#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: utf-8; mode: python; py-indent-offset: 4; indent-tabs-mode: nil -*-
# vim: fileencoding=utf-8 tabstop=4 expandtab shiftwidth=4

# (C) COPYRIGHT © Preston Landers 2010
# Released under the same license as Python 2.6.5


import sys, os, traceback, types

def isUserAdmin():

    if os.name == 'nt':
        import ctypes
        # WARNING: requires Windows XP SP2 or higher!
        try:
            return ctypes.windll.shell32.IsUserAnAdmin()
        except:
            traceback.print_exc()
            print "Admin check failed, assuming not an admin."
            return False
    elif os.name == 'posix':
        # Check for root on Posix
        return os.getuid() == 0
    else:
        raise RuntimeError, "Unsupported operating system for this module: %s" % (os.name,)

def runAsAdmin(cmdLine=None, wait=True):

    if os.name != 'nt':
        raise RuntimeError, "This function is only implemented on Windows."

    import win32api, win32con, win32event, win32process
    from win32com.shell.shell import ShellExecuteEx
    from win32com.shell import shellcon

    python_exe = sys.executable

    if cmdLine is None:
        cmdLine = [python_exe] + sys.argv
    elif type(cmdLine) not in (types.TupleType,types.ListType):
        raise ValueError, "cmdLine is not a sequence."
    cmd = '"%s"' % (cmdLine[0],)
    # XXX TODO: isn't there a function or something we can call to massage command line params?
    params = " ".join(['"%s"' % (x,) for x in cmdLine[1:]])
    cmdDir = ''
    showCmd = win32con.SW_SHOWNORMAL
    #showCmd = win32con.SW_HIDE
    lpVerb = 'runas'  # causes UAC elevation prompt.

    # print "Running", cmd, params

    # ShellExecute() doesn't seem to allow us to fetch the PID or handle
    # of the process, so we can't get anything useful from it. Therefore
    # the more complex ShellExecuteEx() must be used.

    # procHandle = win32api.ShellExecute(0, lpVerb, cmd, params, cmdDir, showCmd)

    procInfo = ShellExecuteEx(nShow=showCmd,
                              fMask=shellcon.SEE_MASK_NOCLOSEPROCESS,
                              lpVerb=lpVerb,
                              lpFile=cmd,
                              lpParameters=params)

    if wait:
        procHandle = procInfo['hProcess']    
        obj = win32event.WaitForSingleObject(procHandle, win32event.INFINITE)
        rc = win32process.GetExitCodeProcess(procHandle)
        #print "Process handle %s returned code %s" % (procHandle, rc)
    else:
        rc = None

    return rc

def test():
    rc = 0
    if not isUserAdmin():
        print "You're not an admin.", os.getpid(), "params: ", sys.argv
        #rc = runAsAdmin(["c:\\Windows\\notepad.exe"])
        rc = runAsAdmin()
    else:
        print "You are an admin!", os.getpid(), "params: ", sys.argv
        rc = 0
    x = raw_input('Press Enter to exit.')
    return rc


if __name__ == "__main__":
    sys.exit(test())