automatic update for users without admin rights

[Hastalavista]

Hi, we bought some licences and evaluate now the update process. Would the automatic update be possible for just normal users on Windows 11 without administrative rights (standard case)?

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Hastalavista

Some actions the updater (or more accurately the installers it runs) will require admin approval to continue, but generally speaking, the updater and installers are able to run on a standard user account without issue. You would only want to ensure an admin is nearby to enter the admin password when the UAC prompt appears.

Alternatively, you can instead push our the updates from a central location, so that the users do not need to manage these aspects of things. Our System admin manual may help to plan that: https://help.pdf-xchange.com/sysadmin/

Kind regards,

[Hastalavista]

"You would only want to ensure an admin is nearby to enter the admin password when the UAC prompt appears."

Sorry, this is really not a viable option.

Automatic updates without admin rights must be possible (like Adobe PDF Reader).

What do you mean by central location? We don't have software distribution, how we can accomplish automatic updates of the PDF Xchange Editor in the long run? We bought maintenance and need up to date products due to security considerations

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello Hastalavista,

If the machines are managed by a system administrator - and permissions are not given to users to install our software - our installation packages will just not be able to run.
So either the admin should approve the installation, or they can (if the set up exist) be able to push any software installation from the admin side of things and deploy any new versions.

Our observations are that when user machines are managed by an admin, they would usually not want an auto updater running and would instead want to have control over what software and when is being updated. Such admin set ups would also have procedures in place on how to deploy updates or new software installations, and the Manuals Dan linked you to should help the sysadmin team with planning the deployment.

Maybe Adobe's updater that you mention has been given special permissions in the past? If that is the case - the sysadmin team should be able to do the same with our updater tool and provide the same permissions for it to be able to run as needed!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[David.P]

Hello all,

Just a quick note on this topic. Like many other software applications, even including security-critical ones like the Chrome and Opera browsers, it could be considered installing PDF-XChange Editor in a location that doesn't require administrative rights.

The only part that needs admin rights for installation is probably the PDF-XChange printer component. However, the PDF Printer probably could be updated less frequently than the main program.

This approach would allow users to keep the main program up to date on their own, while the PDF printer could be updated by an administrator, perhaps only once a year.

For details, please refer to this article (compiled by the world's current leading deep research AI):
ithy.com/article/non-admin-software-69i3i2ksdy

Best regards,
David

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello David.P,

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes - updating the files should work with the installation being done to such a location, however sometimes with updates we also need to update the registry (e.g. if we add a new feature and need to write some of it's valies), so that might not always work, and given that the admin has decided that they want users to not have full access to the machines - it's probably safer if the admin handles the updates globally.

Another alternative without any rights necessary would be the portable Editor obviously, but that is also not ideal if there is an older installed version present on the same machine at the same time.

Kind regards,
Stefan

[David.P]

Thank you Stefan.

Not sure what kind of values PDF-XChange Editor would write to parts of the registry that are admin-restricted.

I could only imagine this being printer-related settings.

I have been running portable and normal installations side by side for many years on many different machines without issue.

Best regards
David

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello David.P,

I am not the one developing those - but I was just mentioning things that could cause problems. We might need to register a specific new feature as some kind of service - and that will write outside of our own registry tree! In any case - it could potentially cause problems!

And as for portable and stand alone versions on the same device - yes I have multiple portable versions as well (for testing purposes), but for most people having more than one version will cause confusion that should not be needed in the general workload, so I would still not recommend that in general!

Kind regards,
Stefan

[Hastalavista]

the automatic update process serves one purpose: fix critical security flaws in a timely manner.
If new editor versions are released, they could include these updates and should be installed as far as possible.

In order to run a secure environment, a PDF reader should be up to date, even if a company does not have software packaging/distribution.

Tampered PDFs sent by email could harm your computers and network easily, an outdated PDF reader is no good idea.

So Adobe does this by installing an update service in the machines system context, users don't need administrative privileges on their computers.

[Paul - PDF-XChange]

Hi, Hastalavista

yes the Printer needs admin rights, but so too do the Shell Extensions. We cannot make the fully featured Editor install in a per user context without compromising the feature set. That option is not one the development team are keen on.

We are also reluctant to create a system tray service that is always running with elevated rights. Users get inundated with so many of these that slow down system startup etc. We really do not want to go that route either.

Correct me if I am wrong, but even Adobe are required to give the user notification of an available update and have the user "approve" it, do they not?

Silent , unattended updates that require admin rights have several challenges. Two of the challenges with this (and there are more) is include:

• What to do if the Editor is running when an update is available
• What to do on multi-user systems.

If the software determines that an update is available and attempts to run the updater it will need to close the Editor, and possibly Explorer.exe as well, or call a system restart. We can't pull the rug out from under the user and just go ahead, user input is needed.

A similar thing happens with multi-user systems. If an update was done silently, every running instance of the Editor would need to be closed. That again would need user interaction and is not something we want to push.

I can see the desire of unattended, automated updates, but it comes at a cost. We will definitely have some further conversations about this here over the coming weeks, maybe we can find a workable compromise.