🔒 Users

User identifier

Unix users are identified with a UID and a GID while Windows users are identified with a SID.

Consequently all methods based on UID or GID fail on Windows:

• os.userInfo().uid|gid return -1.
• fs.stat()'s uid and gid return 0.
• The process methods getuid(), geteuid(), getgid(), getegid(), setuid(), seteuid(), setgid(), setegid(), getgroups(), setgroups() and initgroups() throw an error.
• fs.chown() does not do anything.
• child_process's uid and gid options throw an error.

Privileged user

The privileged user is root on Unix and Administrator on Windows. Those are triggered with different mechanisms.

One can use is-elevated (and the related is-admin and is-root) to check it on any OS.

Other differences

The --secure-heap CLI flag does not do anything on Windows.

Summary

Do not rely on UID or GID.

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