Adobe Reader XI privilege escalation

Question

...I know, this is not really a privilege escalation in the classical way...
Hi.
With both the current versions of Adobe Reader X and XI, standard users are able to repair adobe reader going via appwiz.cpl/control panel.
Problem is: if reader is opened, Windows needs to restart to finish repairing...problem is, even if standard users are NOT allowed to restart the computer (think of terminal servers with dozens of clients logged on), they MAY restart the server, causing real trouble. So even with GPOs in place that deny standard users the privilege to shutdown/restart the computer, buggy Adobe Reader makes it possible.
Side note: while UAC will prompt users to supply admin credentials when trying to uninstall Adobe Reader, it does not prompt when trying to repair. That's the bug.
Tested on win8/server 2012, Server 2008 R2. Adobe Reader 11.0.3/10.1.7

Answer 1

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/reader.html
You may want to check with the dev people about the shut down and how to disable it, this being a user-to-user forum, and not often frequented by development personnel. I'm sure there's a simple code change that will disable it, however, without the restart, the repair becomes useless as Reader cannot repoen until the proper reg keys and dll files are amended per the repair, but then you already know that.
There may also be a code change to enable UAC for repairs. My understanding is that an uninstall may remove shared files, and that's the parameter for Windows to prompt with UAC. but the repair only changes installed files using existing files, so Windows doesn't see that as a potential for damage.