Issue
When running the Excel report program called Reporter, administrative access is required to start the program
Product
Power Monitoring Expert 7.2.x
Environment
Excel 2013
Cause
Windows has a UAC (User Access Control) feature called "Installer Detection". Before it will allow a 32-bit application to run (reportgen.exe is the 32-bit, VB6 application associated with Reporter/RepGen), it checks some of the application's branding/versioning fields, like the "Product name" that you can see when you right-click on a file and access Properties > Details in Windows Explorer, to see if it contains particular keywords that would identify the application as an installer of some type. If it detects one of the keywords, Windows will require the application to be run with an administrator account. Because reportgen.exe has the word "Update" in its "Product name" field, Windows flags it as needing to be run with administrator privileges.
Resolution
*Warning: Take backups of any files prior to modifying them. Ensure the backups are in a location that will not be overwritten (i.e. the Desktop).
Attached is an unbranded version of reportgen.exe.
1. Navigate to ...\system\bin where ... is the install location of PME.
2. Rename reportgen.exe to reportgen_CU2.exe.
3. Extract the reportgen.exe from this article to the bin folder.
Note:
The first time a user runs Repgen.exe (Reporter), the Windows Installer runs to install a few things for the current user. After the first time Reporter is run, the user will no longer need administrative rights to run Reporter. Currently there is no workaround for this behavior.