I downloaded 4 similar programs for my work laptop. Two of them required an admin username and password to install them, but the other two did not.
Why is that?
In: Technology
Some programs are pretty simple. The .exe or whatever your OS uses is really just some instructions for the computer. If all the program wants to do is show you some calculations and maybe let you save documents, that’s not a big threat to the system. There’s no need to get admin privileges involved.
For security, some other things are “walled off”. If the installer or the program tries to touch them, Windows stops the show and asks you if you intend for that to happen. These things tend to be big resources that affect other programs like the registry. But sometimes programs need to install system software like drivers. These more complicated programs want to integrate more tightly with the OS. To protect itself from malicious software, the OS makes sure to ask your permission first.
It’s kind of cruddy and a bad model. You ran the installer yourself so it’s really likely you wanted it to do whatever it needs.
But it’s there to protect you against something worse. Malicious programs could try to be one of the innocent “I don’t integrate with the OS” kind of programs but secretly run an installer in the background. On older versions of Windows, it’d just happen. You wouldn’t know. And now something potentially malicious has embedded itself in the system. On modern versions, you run what’s supposed to be a calculator and immediately get a warning it’s trying to install things. If you say “no”, game over. (People can still say “yes” and get boned.)
Personally I wish it’d explain more about what the program was trying to do, but alas.
(I accidentally ended up Windows-specific. Apple has similar “walls” around certain things that could let a program do dangerous things. One difference is Apple is a little more granular about what the program is trying to do, so it’ll specifically say, “It wants me to let it see all of your keystrokes, even when you’re using other apps.” For some programs, that can make sense. For others, it tells you something sus is going on.)
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