Microsoft's latest August 2025 security update is wreaking havoc on non-admin users across several versions of Windows 10 and 11, preventing app installations from occurring in certain cases. Microsoft states that the August security update, meant to protect users from a privilege escalation vulnerability, is now causing unexpected UAC prompts to occur for non-admin users.
The security vulnerability that started this whole mess is CVE-2025-50173. This elevation of privilege vulnerability specifically exploits weak authentication capabilities in the Windows Installer, allowing attackers to elevate user privileges locally.
