Update fails on machine requiring administration privileges to install software

One more thing, do not run the 1Password installer with admin rights, it is not never the right thing to do for any situations.

Installing an app with admin rights is also not a good idea and is a security risk, it should not be done in general. The proper thing is for the app to ask you for admin rights when it needs it.

Hi @rgad,

Open Windows File Explorer and enter the following in the address bar: %LOCALAPPDATA%\1Password\app\6\

You should see a file called unins000.exe. Run it to uninstall 1Password.

You'll also want to log into your administrator account and run the uninstaller in there as well. Installing 1Password with admin rights may have added its installer/uninstaller to your admin account instead.

@rgad: Thank you for keeping us posted! Did you install 6.8.496? As Mike mentioned above, we do not require administrative rights as of 1Password 6.8, so I am not sure why they are required on your side.

Thanks in advance! :+1:

Cheers,
Greg

@rgad: I'm a bit confused, as we haven't been releasing updates lately. But nevertheless, that's no good at all. Just to confirm, did you already uninstall 1Password completely as Mike suggested, and install it without admin rights? This is simply not how 1Password works:

(still required administration privileges to install)

So it sounds like you're installing as admin anyway, perhaps accidentally. It really appears that installing it with admin rights is the root (no pun intended) cause, as the update process does not use that if you're running it in a different account, so definitely install it without and let me know.

@rgad: If the need to install as admin is enforced by Group Policy, there may be no avoiding the need to install with admin rights. As Greg mentioned, admin rights aren't requested by 1Password as of version 6.8, so any continued request for admin permissions would likely be resulting from Group Policy. Still, your screenshot a few replies up indicates an update is available, which shouldn't be the case if you're using version 6.8 since this is the latest version. When you uninstalled 1Password initially, did you reboot before reinstalling and are you certain you downloaded and ran the installer for the latest version of 1Password? If Malwarebytes was causing trouble, the reboot in particular can be key. Those files that were locked and thus not able to be replaced may not be unlocked until you've rebooted. I'd give uninstalling, rebooting, then reinstalling the latest version another try to see if this fixes that update request.

@rgad: Installing every app as admin is incredibly risky, so I don't see many "enterprises" even allowing that, much less requiring it. :unamused:

@rgad: I hear you. But then again, neither have we seen this much trouble with what's really a very simple install (no system files, everything in one folder, etc.), and we have a lot more than 5000 users. I'm not sure why you're still having trouble with this.

Let's get back to basics. If you've tried all of our suggestions, I'm not sure why it wouldn't work only for you. Are the permissions maybe incorrect, since you're installing as admin but the files are located in the user folder? Use cases like yours are exactly why we don't require admin rights anymore, but I'm wondering if that's just making it easier for you to get into trouble, installing as admin anyway so it can't work properly without admin rights. From your description, it really sounds like it's something to do with your process. I just haven't heard of anyone else having these issues:

Seems 1Password doesn't digitally sign their install files,

Yes, we do:

So I wonder if your certificate store is messed up, if you're seeing something different.

and such, 1password doesn't automatically update its software and I'm constantly having to run download the new install file and then install with administrator credentials to allow 1Password to update.

1Password 6 doesn't require admin rights at all, as that was something many of our customers have requested. I was going to post a screenshot...but I realized that there's no way for me to show it not requiring admin rights.

Further, the Chrome extension seems to require needing to run Chrome as an administrator the first time for the chrome extension to work after an update.

I've never heard of anyone having to run Chrome as admin for any reason, and certainly it isn't something that the 1Password extension requires (there isn't a way for us to even do that). The only thing I can think of is that because you've installed 1Password as admin, its Native Messaging host which connects to Chrome also needs to run as admin now, hence requiring the escalation in Chrome as well. You're right that 1Password is different than other apps you're installing, as it has these moving parts because you expect to be able to use it in the browser.

Anyway, I think maybe you're getting hung up on the folder here. The purpose of Kate's suggestion was to ensure that the user account which needs to run the app is the one that owns the files. Have you tried that? But at the end of the day, if you're pushing installs remotely anyway, you could do the same for each new version of 1Password (rather than having it autoupdate, which it cannot if file ownership is wrong). Just make sure you don't delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\1Password\data or the app will need to be setup again. Otherwise copying over the program files should work.

@rgad: I feel like when I pop in here, it's always with something piddly (sorry!), but did you fully exit 1Password (1Password menu > Exit) and restart your browser after reapplying permissions? My concern being that one of the processes behind the scenes may not have exited and thus still be running as admin and need admin permissions to terminate them for the update.

As for that link, you're right. I'm not sure if we swapped that at some point or if the article I ganked that language from is just wrong, but since I wrote the article in the first place, I have only myself to blame. Thanks for pointing it out and I'm off to fix it. :chuffed:

It seems support doesn't have a solution for this, is that correct? Short of not installing the program with administration credentials, which isn't an option.

@rgad: Right, 1Password needs to be run under the user account that it's installed as. That is an option tat Windows readily supports (and that has been generally recommended on Windows for over a decade now), but unfortunately we don't have any control over the restrictions other parties institute. :(

If you install 1Password under one profile, is it available to other profiles?

Correct. 1Password is installed and run in the user folder, so it would need to be installed for each individual user. Otherwise one could have it running while another tries to update it — essentially the same problem you're running into here. I'm sorry I don't have better news for you. :blush:

@rgad: It isn't possible to specifically disable the notifications, but you can disable automatic updates in 1Password Settings > Updates so that you can just install them on your own.