Are the Help Center instructions for installing SketchUp on Windows wrong?

Problematic URL: Getting Started with SketchUp | SketchUp Help

Description of the Issue:
The above linked page in the Help Center states that you must:

  1. “Log in to the computer with a user account that has administrator rights.” then
  2. "Double-click the EXE install file. You can also context-click and select Run As an Administrator. (Emphasis in original.)

Based on numerous threads in this forum, I’ve come to believe that the “context-click and select Run As an Administrator” is the only way to correctly install SketchUp (Make or Pro, 2015 and later - and perhaps earlier) on Windows. And that you don’t need to be logged in as a user with administrator rights.

Either I’m wrong in my understanding or the instructions on the Help Center are wrong!

Selected Version of SketchUp: The same instructions appear for downloaded (i.e. non web based) versions on Windows - Mac might be different as I think the Help Center does OS detection. On this I could well be wrong!

Selected Operating System: I see the instructions from Windows 10.

How I discovered this: While reading a thread with a user complaining about the need to “uninstall and re-install using Run As Administrator” in order to fix bugs (along with a rant that SketchUp should immediately fix it) I was tempted to suggest the user should have read the installation instructions. But before I chimed in, I thought I should actually check the installation instructions. So I did - and was surprised by what I found!

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I have never had problems installing SketchUp by logging with an admin account and double-clicking the installer, or, from a non-admin account, double-clicking and providing admin user name and password.

I wonder if some third party security software or using Windows with the highest UAC setting causes the failures others report. However, double-clicking is, AFAIK, the standard way of installing Windows applications, and I have never seen anyone explain what the difference is. A short search found no documentation about this. To me it appears as a magic formula, like keeping your fingers crossed.

Edit: Needing to use an undocumented nonstandard procedure to install SketchUp would IMO indicate a buggy installer.

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See this segment of SU Facebook Live…


There’s another set up murky instructions over here…
Installing & Authorizing SketchUp— SketchUp Help
https://help.sketchup.com/en/article/56085

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In the last few months I have seen other apps that need to be installed (on Windoze 10) with the right click and select run as administrator

Aaron always has the most humorous shirts. “Stand back I’m going to try science.”

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