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I cannot seem to get ProtonVPN to work unless I am logged in as an administrator. I'd rather not have to use it this way and was curious if there was any plans to address this? I've tried it on a few PCs, and all require administrator accounts to start.
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Good question.
I don’t know why all the big VPN companies require this. The OpenVPN AS client doesn’t need admin rights to run and add the necessary routing table entries.
You shouldn’t need to log in as an administrator however, just accept the UAC prompt.
I've done this and ProtonVPN Client just never starts. I see various ProtonVPN processes attempting to start, but the client never does.
I even installed Windows 10 Pro fresh on a PC and tried using ProtonVPN out of the box with a user account (after installing as administrator) and it didn't work in that way either.
Paging u/protonvpn
If you account is not an admin account you will run into problems trying to install the program correctly.
Shouldn't be the case when you tick that it should start on system startup. The admin prompt appears when ProtonVPNservice is starting, which is essential and needs admin privileges.
This is not my experience. The service actually starts without admin rights during PC startup but turning on the ProtonVPN interface (also known as "double clicking the ProtonVPN icon") invokes UAC prompt.
That's weird... Is your UAC more sensitive than default?
Nope, default UAC, default user account.
It would be great if you could send us Event Log to support@protonvpn.com. We have to check what happens with the service itself on startup, is it possible for you to do that?
Like u/lucius42, I have not had this experience.
Even giving the admin password to the UAC prompt, the ProtonVPN interface never starts, instead I see all sorts of ProtonVPN processes starting in the background. My UAC sensitivity is the default as well.
I would recommend checking with their support team.