Request UAC elevation from within a Python script?

Question

I want my Python script to copy files on Vista. When I run it from a normal cmd.exe window, no errors are generated, yet the files are NOT copied. If I run

Answer 1

A variation on Jorenko's work above allows the elevated process to use the same console (but see my comment below):

def spawn_as_administrator():
    """ Spawn ourself with administrator rights and wait for new process to exit
        Make the new process use the same console as the old one.
          Raise Exception() if we could not get a handle for the new re-run the process
          Raise pywintypes.error() if we could not re-spawn
        Return the exit code of the new process,
          or return None if already running the second admin process. """
    #pylint: disable=no-name-in-module,import-error
    import win32event, win32api, win32process
    import win32com.shell.shell as shell
    if '--admin' in sys.argv:
        return None
    script = os.path.abspath(sys.argv[0])
    params = ' '.join([script] + sys.argv[1:] + ['--admin'])
    SEE_MASK_NO_CONSOLE = 0x00008000
    SEE_MASK_NOCLOSE_PROCESS = 0x00000040
    process = shell.ShellExecuteEx(lpVerb='runas', lpFile=sys.executable, lpParameters=params, fMask=SEE_MASK_NO_CONSOLE|SEE_MASK_NOCLOSE_PROCESS)
    hProcess = process['hProcess']
    if not hProcess:
        raise Exception("Could not identify administrator process to install drivers")
    # It is necessary to wait for the elevated process or else
    #  stdin lines are shared between 2 processes: they get one line each
    INFINITE = -1
    win32event.WaitForSingleObject(hProcess, INFINITE)
    exitcode = win32process.GetExitCodeProcess(hProcess)
    win32api.CloseHandle(hProcess)
    return exitcode