As you probably know by now, Windows 7 introduces some new in-between modes for User Account Control (UAC). By default, Windows 7 (beta thus far) ships with UAC configured at the “Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer.” level. As the UAC helper text indicates, “this setting does not prompt when you change Windows settings, such as control panel and administration tasks.”

But how does Windows determine if an application should not prompt the user and simply auto-elevate? As Long Zheng alluded to, Windows checks the process’ image on disk for an embedded digital certificate. But this alone isn’t enough, otherwise instances of any Microsoft application (e.g. calc.exe) would automatically elevate. Leo Davidson did some initial investigative work and uncovered a clue direct from Microsoft.

You can read the entire article at Within Windows.