LUA Buglight 2.2 with support for Windows 8
Announcing the release of LUA Buglight 2.2, including support for Windows 8. LUA Buglight is an interactive utility that identifies admin-permissions issues ("LUA bugs") in desktop applications. Version 2.2 (attached to this blog post) adds support for Windows 8 and continues support for Windows XP, Vista, and 7, and all corresponding server platforms.
Many legacy applications work correctly only when executed with administrative rights. LUA Buglight helps identify the specific operations these apps perform that require admin rights so that those issues can be addressed. With Windows Vista and Windows 7, User Account Control helps ensure that apps run with standard user rights even when the user is an administrator. Unfortunately, many people have disabled UAC, allowing apps to run with full admin rights. Note that on Windows 8, Modern UI apps will not run when UAC is disabled, so it's time to get those admin-permissions issues fixed!
[1-July-2015: attachment removed; v2.3 is now available here.]
Comments
- Anonymous
November 28, 2012
"Note that on Windows 8, Modern UI apps will not run when UAC is disabled" Aaron, is there a reference to that on TechNet or MSDN? It's not that I don't believe you. I just hadn't heard/read that tidbit.[Aaron Margosis] Not yet, but Chris Jackson talked about it in a recent TechEd presentation, Windows 8 Security Internals.[Aaron Margosis] Oh - Chris also mentions it in this TechNet article. ("But, for the minority of organizations who disabled UAC and ran users as administrators, there is reason to consider revisiting this decision now, before migrating to Windows 8, as this feature is a prerequisite for Windows 8–style immersive applications!") That should be plenty of documentation, no? :) - Anonymous
November 30, 2012
What can I say? I like reading documentation. And, it's nice when I can say "Official Microsoft documenation says ___". Otherwise I'm saying "The App Compat Guy said you can't do ____". Depending on my audience, usually DoD security folk", the latter statement might not carry as much weight as it should. So, what we need is to broaden Chris's reputation in the DoD space. So we can say "The App Compat Guy said ___" and that's all anyone needs. :) - Anonymous
September 04, 2013
I'm receiving the error "Target process requires elevation. LUA Buglight cannot profile this app." I have also tried this suggestion but it did not resolve the error "You can turn off this installer detection heuristic in Local Security Policy | Security Settings | Local Policies | Security Options | "User Account Control: Detect application installations and prompt for elevation" - set to Disable." Any other suggestions to get around this? - Anonymous
September 04, 2013
And an update to my last post. It seems that I can run other programs, but the proprietary one I have been trying to run pops that error. Other programs such as Powershell and IE open just fine.[Aaron Margosis] There are a handful of reasons that an app may insist on running elevated: 1) it has a manifest that insists that it run elevated - you can check the manifest using Sysinternals SigCheck with the -m option; 2) Windows thinks it's an installer because of something like the word "setup" in the file name or the version information - the security option you described should disable that but might require reboot to take effect; 3) the app has been configured to use a shim that insists on elevation - one example of this is the "XP" option in the Compatibility tab of the exe's Properties. - Anonymous
November 01, 2013
Hi Aaron, I am a wordpress developer,the information you shared that buglight support the window 8, is their any drawback ..... [Aaron Margosis] I don't understand what you're trying to ask here. - Anonymous
February 08, 2014
Trying to start a test and it throws this (on Win8.1 x64):---------------------------LBLTokenHelper-Vista---------------------------Unable to start LUA Buglight kernel driver. (Might be a version issue.) Error = 50Driver path = C:UsersusernameAppDataLocalTempLBLDriverX64.sys[Aaron Margosis] Known issue. The driver is designed not to be forward-compatible and needs to be tested on each Windows version before it will run on that version. I had held off going through the trouble of updating it for 8.1 because no one (until now) had asked for 8.1 support. I'll try to get an update released in the near future. In the meantime, it still works on XP through Win8 and corresponding servers. - Anonymous
February 08, 2014
...in the meantime, is this the right place to be following for any updates?[Aaron Margosis] Yes. - Anonymous
June 04, 2014
Any chance fora Win 8.1 x64 compatible version soon?[Aaron Margosis] Well, there's been close to zero demand, so it's been difficult to prioritize... - Anonymous
July 14, 2014
I love BugLight but need 2012 R2 support for out 6000 strong user base....[Aaron Margosis] There's been very little demand for an update so far! What kinds of apps are you running on Windows Server that need a utility like LUA Buglight? - Anonymous
August 20, 2014
Please keep 8.1 x64 in mind :) - Anonymous
August 27, 2014
Please update for Windows 8.1 x64. - Anonymous
October 28, 2014
Please keep 8.1 in mind! I also need it.Thanks. - Anonymous
December 22, 2014
Another request for Windows 8.1 Pro and Enterprise X64. - Anonymous
March 03, 2015
I can give you two big customers Aaron. :-) While we are at it, throw Windows 10 on the list. ;-) Vlad Pigin can vouch for me and my business cases. ;-) - Anonymous
May 12, 2015
Could not get this to run. "Unable to start LUA Buglight kernel Driver (might be a version issue) error =50 Machine is Win 8.1 [Aaron Margosis] It hasn't been updated yet to run on anything newer than Windows 8. Haven't had much demand.