Windows 10: no UAC prompt in explorer

When I'm trying to copy or move files to a system directory (like C:\Program Files or C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu) nothing happens instead of being prompted for access rights with the usual UAC dialog. The files are not copied/moved and there is no error message.

Here's the story behind it:
I got a new PC with Windows 10 installed. There was already a user account "user" created, but I wanted my own account "Florian" with my own name. So I created my account in Administrative Tools and added it to the Administrators group. I switched to my new account and deleted the old "user" account.

Since then I started to setup my PC and install my programs. I tried to copy some portable programs to C:\Program Files when I noticed that I could not simply copy a directory into C:\Program Files. I expected a UAC prompt, but I only got the wait cursor for the fraction of a second and nothing happened. I cannot even delete directories from installed programs.

My user account has no permissions except "special permissions" for C:\Program Files, but as I am in the Administrators group I should be able to modify files there. I checked this with another Windows 10 installation and the permissions are the same.

I get the regular UAC prompt when modifying system settings running programs "as Administrator".

Any ideas why I am not prompted for permission when copying to system folders?

After some experimenting I found the solution: TortoiseCVS installed s shell extension which in some mysterious way prevented the UAC dialog. After uninstalling TortoiseCVS it worked again. To confirm it, I installed TortoiseCVS again and the problem was back.

Unfortunately, TortoiseCVS hasn't been updated in years and even the last release candidate does not solve the problem. I guess I need another CVS client on Windows 10...

We have resolved the technical issue behind the loss of UAC prompts when using TortoiseCVS in Windows 10.

Our bug number for this issue is 6978: http://customer.march-hare.com/webtools/bugzilla/ttshow_bug.cgi?id=6978&tt=1

The problem is resolved in CVSNT 2.8.01.6002 and later releases.

You can download the latest release here: http://march-hare.com/cvspro/

Regards,

Arthur Barrett

Product Manager CVSNT

As the original poster's answer noted, the problem is caused by TortoiseCVS. If you want to fix the problem but keep the program, you can remove the shell extension.

Find Tortoiseshell64.dll in the TortoiseCVS program files. Renaming it will cause Explorer to not be able to load it, thus fixing the problem. Alternatively, you can use Sysinternals Autoruns to disable the shell extension and stop Explorer from even trying to load it. (It will be on the Explorer tab under one of the ShellEx headers.)