Asus Armoury Crate dislikes Standard Account Users

[SignedAdam]

Specifications : 

Motherboard : ROG Crosshair VIII Hero (WI-FI)

OS Name Microsoft Windows 11 Pro

BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 4501, 19/04/2023

Processor AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor called with a h115i pro

GV-N4090GAMING OC-24GD

ax1600i power supply

32 Gb of ram

symptom : when opening Armoury Crate with a Standard User account (non administrator) Armoury Crate will display a checking message, then ask for administrator privileges, I grant permission and enter my password, im then displayed a few messages about installing things, to name one "peripheral" after its finished im asked if i want to reopen the app or close it, i reopen and im displayed the same message as before, checking and then on to asking for administrator privileges again, displaying the same messages and after reopening, it just goes on in a loop, never opens, never ends

resolution : the only resolution is to open Armoury Crate as administrator, that means all accounts on the system will need to be administrator to open Armoury Crate

conclusion : end users of Microsoft Windows are advised by Microsoft, regardless of windows version, not to use an administrator account, as its a security risk for end users, hence why standard accounts exist as an option, does ASUS and the Armoury Crate developers intent to put end users at risk so they can carry on using Armoury Crate? an included and essential, only official program/app that allows adjustment of all lighting on the motherboard? no where can I find in the documentation that this program / app will only work for administrators, if it is intended, the Asus and it's the Armoury Crate developers need to make this clear to end users.

thank you for you're time, feel free to see the symptoms in real time and my reaction ‌‌😡

[SignedAdam]

On the note about the ram, that executable shouldn't be running, I should be able to remove it from my system, you are impacting precious resources by having things running for hardware that I don't even own on the system, how does this even make sense, these things should be like modules and we tick or untick a box if we want it or not, not have it pointlessly running in the background, especially when we don't even have the hardware it's trying to communicate with!

[unimpressed]

This thread is WILD. 

I signed up just to comment how thoroughly incompetent asus' approach is to this. 

Microsoft strongly recommends against running as admin .. but asus laptops are rage-inducingly difficult to use without running as admin because nothing works. 

I finally found this thread linked as a way to get the feedback to them since one of the many threads all over the internet of people trying to deal with this from reddit pointed here. 

Fix it.  When you first install the drivers, you should have to provide admin-auth for it to install itself to have the privs it needs, but it shouldn't then be something you have to deal with day to do when (correctly) using your laptop as only a standard user.

I'm laughing so hard at the prospect of someone trying to use an asus laptop in a corporate environment (occasionally it happens, gaming laptops are cheaper than  mobile workstations for similar performance on 3dscanning/mapping work that needs to be mobile etc)... but in a corporate environment this laptop would be a disaster since users usually shouldn't have access to admin.  

[unimpressed]

has anyone else found that you can't even get external displays to be recognised when you plug them in and you're running as a standard user? 

WHY ?   I plugged in a display!  It's not that hard to let standard users have an external screen. 

[SignedAdam]

I think that's another problem, haven't heard of it, I use one of their motherboards and dedicated graphics, displays show up for me. Do you think anyone who has experienced this software is going to be a repeat customer, Asus's response to this whole situation is also disgraceful, in order for them to even think about fixing it we need more support? Internally this should be a priority, it's not just my thread, theres another thread about the same thing 

[MasterC]

If you are concerned about security, then wouldn't you be concerned about people obtaining direct access to your hardware? That is precisely what Armoury Crate does. 
By logging into Windows as a standard user, you are choosing to limit yourself in terms of access - not only Armoury Crate. Not allowing Armoury Crate full access for standard users should make sense if you are really concerned about security. We will not allow just any user on your system to be making adjustments to the fans or overclocking settings.
None of the other companies allow their software to have hardware access from a standard user account.

[SignedAdam]

Wrong @MasterC what's the worse that someone's going to do, change my fan speed, my RGB colours, these are none sensitive areas and shouldn't be locked behind an administrative privilege, blocking standard accounts, if you want to do it properly then you could add a buttons that unlocks theses options to administrators, inside of Armoury Crate, under the sensitive option, like overclocking for example.. but blocking full access to everything and not even informing the user why they can't use Armoury Crate, is just plane wrong, even worse the system just goes in to a install loop, even when it's granted administrative privilege it continues the install loop. The whole thing is messed up and needs sorting out. Standard users should be able to open the app and see basic information, and change none critical parts of the system. You can't argue that security is better than a standard user account, what you are arguing is that every person using that machine has to be signed in to a security risk administrator account if they don't want to be deafed by the computer fans or have a bright rainbow box

[unimpressed]

Yeah - honestly - MasterC I think you're out of your depth, and not understanding the depth of how serious & damaging this looks for Asus... I'm sooo tempted to forward this along to the LTT suggestions thread.

> None of the other companies allow their software to have hardware access from a standard user account.

I think what you meant was *EVERY* company allows and usually ENFORCES that their users only run as standard users if following best practices.  Most companies these days never even allow most-users to have admin-access *ever*. 

Best practice is for users to only use standard accounts - and these DO have access to power-settings (i.e. its normal for standard users to have control of batter/fan settings) & a variety of hardware control & physical access to the machine, they can even turn the machine offf! shock-horror! ...   I really don't think you understand how much this precludes ASUS from ever being eligible to sell these to a company looking to use them as corporate-owned assets, nor for even home-users looking to follow best-practices. 

... this is all just still wild.   Laptops that can't work without running as admin. wow.  🔥