Updating on a non-admin account is really frustrating.

vershner

My user account on my work machine is not an administrator. I have a separate admin account.

If I try to update from my normal account it fails because it cannot elevate. Fine.

So I run Vivaldi under my admin account and tell it to update. It downloads the update and then wants to restart itself to install the update. Trouble is, it then restarts itself under my non-admin account and the update fails.

It seems the only way to update is to go to the Vivaldi web site, download the latest version and run that as an admin.

Firefox and Palemoon have no problem updating with a separate account. Please can Vivaldi start its update using the account the browser is currently running as.

mib2berlin

@vershner
Hi, it depends how you install Vivaldi, single user, all users or standalone.
For all users you need Admin rights, for the other not.
You have to login to your Admin account, update and all users have the update.
I cant test this, there is no update at moment.
You can set VIvaldi to update automatically as Admin, then forget.

Cheers, mib

Pathduck

Generally it's a Bad Idea to sign into your Administrator account. Users with a need to run processes with elevated privileges should be added to the Administrators group. This means UAC will kick in as needed.

Since you are already able to sign into your Administrator account, I'm assuming you already are able to change user account memberships.

You should also not explicitly run programs as Administrator unless it's absolutely needed - most programs and installers will prompt for UAC elevation if needed.

Like said above, the Per User and Standalone installs do not require elevated permissions. Please read:
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/install-the-vivaldi-browser/

For instance on my system, I have Vivaldi "All Users" installed. My user is member of Administrators. When I check for updates, UAC will prompt for elevation and proceed with the update.

If you get into some unrecoverable state with this it might be an idea to competely uninstall the browser (but no need to delete user data), and also make sure to delete the registry entries:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Vivaldi
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Vivaldi
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Vivaldi
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Vivaldi
The location of these keys depend on your install type and if running 32/64-bit installs.

vershner

@Pathduck said in Updating on a non-admin account is really frustrating.:

Generally it's a Bad Idea to sign into your Administrator account. Users with a need to run processes with elevated privileges should be added to the Administrators group. This means UAC will kick in as needed.

Since you are already able to sign into your Administrator account, I'm assuming you already are able to change user account memberships.

You should also not explicitly run programs as Administrator unless it's absolutely needed - most programs and installers will prompt for UAC elevation if needed.

Like said above, the Per User and Standalone installs do not require elevated permissions. Please read:
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/install-the-vivaldi-browser/

For instance on my system, I have Vivaldi "All Users" installed. My user is member of Administrators. When I check for updates, UAC will prompt for elevation and proceed with the update.

If you get into some unrecoverable state with this it might be an idea to competely uninstall the browser (but no need to delete user data), and also make sure to delete the registry entries:
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Vivaldi
Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Vivaldi
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Vivaldi
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Vivaldi
The location of these keys depend on your install type and if running 32/64-bit installs.

Well, my Infosec dept disagree, and there's not much I can do about that. Everyone gets a standard account, and then if they need to run something elevated they get a second account which is a member of administrators. It is not the "administrator" account.
I don't log in to the machine as the second account. I simply run programs under those credentials, from the main account.

Regardless of whether this works better in a single-user install, the fact remains that it doesn't work well as an all-users install. It really shouldn't be that difficult to fix this issue. The update process simply has to inherit the user from its parent, which is the default behaviour.

DoctorG

All my Windows accounts have their own Vivaldi installed by Installer mode Advanced → "Install for User".
No problem to update

My way to avoid the nasty Windows UAC for running a update as non-Administrator.

WoefulNarvik

This issue taps into one of my few frustrations with Vivaldi. The functionality to do silent updates for "All Users" installs was originally planned. However this project was set aside to address another project and appears to not been revisited (unless the Vivaldi team is saving it for me as a Christmas surprise).

https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/66090/4-2-will-arrive-soon-vivaldi-browser-snapshot-2406-21/22

For those advocating the other install methods, these methods are not practical in a multi-user environment.

wolfergabe

For company use, it would be good if:

updates would be downloaded and installed automatically in the background (or would there be such an option)
if I install the program for all users, then you don't need to be an administrator to install the updates.

DoctorG

@wolfergabe You know about installer → Advanced option?

"Standalone" install
⇒ https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/install-update/standalone-version-of-vivaldi/
Updates in background.
"Install for User"
Updates daily with a Windows Task

I use both install types with different Vivaldi versions for testing, never had issues.

enc0re

I also work in big corporate company without admin rights. And as @vershner also our IT team doesn't use "Administrator" account but other account which member of administrator group, which is pretty standard way in corporates.

Anyway, there is no problem with updates as there is Standalone way of installation as mentioned multiple times above. I have installed my instance for years in %LOCALAPPDATA% folder without admin rights, and updates are delivered just fine. Also updates in background works fine.

@vershner Just install Vivaldi as "Standalone" option in installer as your user without admin rights to %LOCALAPPDATA% or whereever else you have write access without admin rights and it will be ok.