Mark this isn't a solution to the problem specified.  in my instance we are running Quickbooks Desktop in a remote desktop environment.  Quickbooks should not be asking for administrator privileges to run, there is a problem with the software and it has been occurring for some time between versions of quickbooks, this issue isn't new.  I believe the problem to be related to some update process but I haven't taken the time to track it down, 

In our environment with multiple users on the remote desktop server I have become accustom to just logging in as administrator executing quickbooks with the windows user account with admin privileges then calling back the user to say that its no ok for them to open quickbooks.  This has become increasingly frustrating as we have recently increased our use frequency and number of users executing quickbooks.  I happened upon this thread in my search,  I followed the other recommendations related to quickbooks point of sale but I dont think that has resolved it, only time will tell.  The solutions to disable windows UAC and to force Quickbooks to run as administrator are both disturbing.  I cannot understand why a company the size of quickbooks can't get their act together to so their software functions properly with windows user permissions.  I know this issue has been in a thorn my side for years but it definitely seems to have increased in frequency since we updated to quickbooks 2022.

I am intrigued by a previous user post saying that he created a group that gives certain users executiable permissions for the file to launch quickbooks I am just not yet sure if my problem and his are the same.  I really do think this issue deserves proper attention from Quickbooks support!

Hi there, kcwhited.

Thank you for sharing what you've experienced with QuickBooks that keeps on asking for the admin password. I'd like to check this for you but I'm unable to pull up an account here in the Community forum.

I recommend you contact our QuickBooks Desktop Live Team so they can check what's on. They can also submit a request for a formal investigation when necessary.

If the same issue persists after contacting our Support Team, please get back to this thread. We'll do everything to fix this for you.

Amazing how stupid most of the so called QB experts are. This is a very common problem due to Intuits faulty implementation of networking. Their answer will always be to Run the QB Database Server Manager which will give the "Everyone" group full control over your QB shared folder. Of course this mean any idiot browsing the network could accidently delete an entire company file. Quickbooks works well for a single user not so well for a company. Perhaps just as bad is their trying to force users to sign in with an Intuit account. We have hourly workers with limited QB access and this pop up will try to make then log in with an Intuit account they don't have! Annoying to say the least. 

I would like to add to this thread to save some people time. 

I followed the advice of the intuit employees and called into support for my QB pro 2023 product and was told the following in this order. 

1. the support agent didn't under the problem and thought it was related to the company file even though I slowly explained it 3 times.   

2. This is not a QB problem contact your admin ie myself.

3. Just give the user admin rights. 

4. I talked to all my resources and its not a QB problem but a permissions problem.  no actually details beyond that. 

5.  After pressuring him repetitively to escalate this he said he would note this with his manager. 

6. I asked for a supervisor as he clearly didn't understand the problem still after pointing to this thread that is over a year old and intuit has not fixed or provided any solution.  

7. Was told I would get a call back after 5-10 minutes 30 minutes later no call. 

So Intuit can you please for the love of god get a developer or real engineer to look into this problem?  This is not a problem for other software products on Windows. 

I don't have the time at the moment to give you detailed instructions, but this has been a long-time problem.

There are specialized ports and permissions that need to be opened, depending upon your version and your software used (payroll or non-payroll), single or multi-user.

For a simple, single user Desktop install, I employ an already existing 'limited user' account that the eventual bookeeper will run, then login to the computer as OS Administrator, go to Control Panel and elevate the 'limited user' account temporarily to Administrator, then log back into the 'limited user' account (now elevated to Administrator level), install the Desktop software, then logout and log back into the Administrator account, go to Control Panel, and restore the elevated 'limited user' account back to the original 'limited user' account security level.  This gets around any issues of not having sufficient security privileges to install programs for that limited user account, and allows the 'limited user' to run QB without Admin passwords.  QB runs just fine as a limited user account.

As far as firewalls and security permissions, you can employ Process Explorer and PsExe programming tools from Mark Russinovich from Sysinternals.org (they are related to Microsoft).  Running these tools will indicate with port was attempted to be opened but failed, which folder was attempted to be accessed but failed, etc.  Using these tools will let you analyze exactly what you need to open in order to run, regardless of the QB version or computer you are on.  It doesn't require programming, but does require a moderate level of computer expertise - if you are not comfortable with these somewhat advanced programs, you should call a computer expert friend.  It is especially useful on a network install.

Quickbooks is not trivial to install, and is it desirable to employ someone experienced to install and setup Quickbooks.  In my experience, they try, but even QB tech support staff doesn't have enough computer experience to assist you in installing on your computer.  There are a lot of details they just can't see over the phone.

Just so you know, there is, somewhere on the Intuit Quickbooks website, a document describing the ports, registry settings, folder security permissions, for each recent version of installation of Quickbooks.  It isn't easy to find, but it's out there somewhere.  Elevation of user security from 'limited user' to Admin, temporarily, has solved a lot of problems for me.  Desktop Pro 2020 was installed without issue simply by elevating temporarily 'limited user' level.  Older versions were much more complex.

If you are performing a multi-user install on a network, you will have to open ports, and run different programs on different computers.  Plan on a week to get it installed and debugged - not trivial.  The documentation for Quickbooks is not great.  I haven't seen yet a book for sale that covers this subject.  Consequently, if you are an accountant and not a computer programmer, this is one case where hiring an experienced QB computer expert installer to install the program for you is money well spent (and I don't like spending money just for installation). 

Just setting up Bank Feeds is a frustrating experience because of hidden features (the browser used to connect to the bank is restricted to the built-in Internet Explorer, which goes obsolete soon by Microsoft, and you can't use another browser).  QB uses Internet Explorer regardless of your usual browser. They don't make this fact apparent, but once you understand it Bank Feeds works great!

Another slowdown in installation:  during Bank Feeds downloads, QB asks you for the bank 'PIN' but it isn't a formal bank 'PIN', but just the normal password you use to login to the bank over a browser.  A miscommunication of terms (PIN vs password), but will force you to spend hours and calling tech support setting up just this one function.  Tech support doesn't know how to solve this problem - they hung up on me.  Which is why I recommend employing someone experienced with these issues to perform the install for you these techniques aren't working for you, if you value your time.

I have spent the better part of a day researching this for a client in an RDS environam,ent with multiple versions of QB installed.  The fix for this used to be running the serivces as the Local System Account. This has been the fix for years and this no longer works.  The reason why is because the first time a user opens a version of QuickBooks, EVEN IF THE SERVICE IS RUNNING FINE, QuickBooks will check the service and reset it back to using the QB user and revert all the settings.  The program will then work fine UNTIL any user opens a different version of the same year (Premier vs Enterprise).  At that point it will try to check the service again and screw up. The issue is QuickBooks is trying to reset up the service on launch, so what ends up happening is the service is then left in an unusable state until an admin logs in and fixes it.  

I am currently trying to figure out a way to allow the user to let this application do its thing without giving them admin priveleges.

I appreciate the steps you performed to resolve the recurring issue, atuomala.

Since the odd behavior persists, I'd suggest reaching out to our phone agents so we can investigate this further.

You can reach out to them via the Help menu.

I'll be around whenever there's anything that I can help with.

The phone agents are useless.  They don't understand their own product to the extent that IT professionals do.  After consideration, the workaround for this is to move the database manager to a server that is not the RDS server or use virtual machines for each user versus an RDS environment. This will effectively prevnet the task that QuickBooks now runs on startup to try to "fix" the services that are not broken.  The fix that IT admins have been using for over a decade to run the services as the Local System Account is no longer a viable solution due to this change in how QucikBooks starts up.

I appreciate your response I have been dealing with this forever, it is a massive pain, one of many with quickbooks.  the primary problem being that they are trying to force everyone to a could based product that is not a suitable replacement for quickbooks desktop. 

Mini rant over..  will it really stop doing this if I move the database to a different server?  I just didn't want to add complexity if it might still cause the clients to nag me about it.

Thanks

-Kevin

Thanks for your input,  it is interesting.  we had been using Enterprise and switched to pro because we went to an MRP system but decided to maintain Accounting in quickbooks.  we moved our company to Quickbooks pro basically setting up a new company.   However for archive purposes we maintain the Enterprise version so they can look up history, That explains why this problem is so Random.  it sure would be nice if Quickbooks could pay attention and fix this issue instead of forcing everyone where they want to go especially when they should recogize that many people using their software have to maintain multiple versions.  

Thanks for the help.  

Its not like this issue is new if quickbooks cared they could certainly choose to fix the problem.   It seems like some kind of sick backwards plan to force people into throwing their hands up and suffering with the web version despite its significant shortcomings.  I know I have spent enough time on support over this issue with no progress I am done with it.  Quickbooks is effectively a monopoly for small business accounting they should make a better effort to release a more reliable product instead of annual useless new releases

I will post once we implement the fix, but logically it should fix it as the program could not restart or fix the service from the desktop client on another computer.

You are totally correct. Ever since they got bought out a few years back their support services have been terribad.

I had this same issue. However, when I checked the newly installed service (recreated from the update of QB) actually was crashing and failing to start. When I changed the service off from QB user to local system the service started properly. Changed it to automatic from manual and tested it on a test account on my Terminal Server. It is no longer asking for admin rights to open Quickbooks.

Make sure to change the service to manual. It could still be asking to start the service when QB is opened if it is set to manual. And of course a standard user doesn't have rights to access services.msc to start the service.

This should fix it: https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/603605-quickbooks-occasionally-asks-for-windows-admin-permiss...

I have had this issues since way back and this solution has worked every time.

Had to spend a lot of time googling as QB has no clue, don't even bother bringing this solution up to QB support.

There are a few things on that link...The group policy changes seem to be a security issue for me.

We already had the service set to auto, but I did add the 'restart' setting on the service.

It's amazing how many times the moderators provided the same information without even understanding the problem.

Any solution to this? 

I been working on this for months!

Having to help all employees get into QB.. crazy!!

Thanks for joining this thread, @AccurateAccounting. I'm here to provide insights about entering administrator password.

There are possible reasons why you need to enter the administrator password to open QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT):

• The file is saved in a protected location such as the root of C:// Drive or Program Files of Windows Vista, 7, or 8.
• The file is located in a restricted location.
• Folder permissions are not set up properly.
• The folder where the company file is saved is damaged.

To get this fixed, let's perform some various solutions. First, let's start with running the QuickBooks File Doctor. This way, it'll help us resolve common errors. Once done, here's how you'll have to set QuickBooks to run as administrator:

1. Close QuickBooks Desktop.
2. Right-click the QuickBooks Desktop icon, then select Properties.
3. Under the Compatibility tab, choose Run this program as administrator.
4. Hit on Apply, then OK.

After that, let's move the company file to its default location.

1. Close QuickBooks Desktop.
2. Browse to the location of your company file.
3. Right-click the company file (.qbw), then click Copy
4. Browse to the default location, right-click and select Paste.Location:C://Users/Public/PublicDocuments/Intuit/QuickBooks/Company Files
5. Open the company file from the default location.

Moreover, I suggest performing Solutions 4 and 5 in this article if the issue persists: You do not have sufficient permissions to the specified folder.

Additionally, you can check out these articles to learn more about Windows permissions when using QBDT:

• Set up folder and Windows access permissions to share company files
• Stay signed in to QuickBooks Desktop

You can always click the Reply button and leave a comment below if you have any other concerns. I'll be always around ready to help.

This is such a weak an idiotic fix.  Our option is to give QB Administrator privilege's to our server or move to an unsecure and venerable location?  A basic programmer out of school could fix this. QB is trying to force us to give them unrestricted access to our servers.  This is why they won't spend the 20 minutes to fix this issue.

Yep we have tried all these things and they don't work.  Can you please escalate this to your engineers or devs to get a solution to this problem?  Its been years and no amount of calling in or explaining this problem seems to get anywhere.   And this is not a Windows problem this is a QB problem.  Most software does not require admin permission to run updates.  This would not be a problem but you can't even open the company file when these critical updates are needed unless you run the updates as a windows admin.  

Kevin, please review basic computers roles & rights and how they are assigned.   None of your steps help.

You are explaining exactly what I've been dealing with for quite some time now.  When moving the DB manager to another server are you simply just installing it on another local server and pointing it to the same folder and that's it?  Problem solved?

EDIT:  Trying to do this now and can't point the DB Manager to a Network Share or Mapped drive... So that seems to go out the window

@Ed888888 That is the old fix that worked for forever that no longer works on newer versions.

Hi there, @nags.  I'm here to share some steps that can help you with your concern about how to move your QuickBooks Database Manager to another server without being asked for the administration password.

Let’s install the QuickBooks Database Server Manager on your server computer. Please take note that this will host your company files.

Here’s how:

1. Close all open programs on your server computer, including QuickBooks.
2. Open the install file you downloaded. It's called Setup_QuickBooks.exe.
3. Follow the onscreen instructions. If you need to find your product or license numbers, here's how to find them.
4. When QuickBooks asks you to choose an install type, select Custom or Network Options. Then select Next. Don't select Express.
5. Choose the best option for your network setup and then select Next. Both options install the Database Server Manager. If QuickBooks Desktop is already installed on your server computer, this won’t overwrite any existing company data.
   1. If you want Database Server Manager and QuickBooks Desktop on your server computer, select I'll be using QuickBooks Desktop on this computer, AND I'll be storing... We strongly recommend this option.
   2. If you only want Database Server Manager on your server computer, select I will NOT be using QuickBooks Desktop...
6. Follow the rest of the onscreen instructions. When you’re ready, select Install. Windows may ask you for permission.

Feel free to read through this article for more information about setting up this server: Install QuickBooks Database Server Manager.

Windows will then ask for your permission to access the folders that hold your company files. Then, set your firewall permissions to run on your server computer.

I’ve got this article about the multi-user setup in QuickBooks Desktop to guide you: Set up and install a multi-user network for QuickBooks Desktop.