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winget error 0x80073D28: needs administrator rights

0x80073D28 with the text “The package installation failed because administrator privileges are required” means the upgrade needs administrator rights and winget ran without them.

What it means

Section titled “What it means”

This is not one of winget’s own 0x8A15.... codes, and it does not appear in winget’s table of return codes. The message that goes with it is clear: administrator privileges are required.

Microsoft’s WSL project has a public report with this exact text. There, winget upgrade Microsoft.WSL was run in a normal PowerShell window. Winget should ask for elevation (a UAC prompt), but the upgrade stopped early with 0x80073d28 instead.

Why it happens

Section titled “Why it happens”
  • The package’s installer needs administrator rights, and your terminal is a normal one.
  • Winget did not raise a UAC prompt, or the prompt was closed.
  • Some apps, such as a desktop app that installs a background service, can only be updated as administrator. Windows documents this as ERROR_PACKAGED_SERVICE_REQUIRES_ADMIN_PRIVILEGES.

How Devpit fixes or avoids it

Section titled “How Devpit fixes or avoids it”

Update Everything runs your updates as a normal user. Devpit itself never runs as administrator.

When an app fails with 0x80073D28, Devpit does not fail it on the spot. The row says “needs admin rights, retrying at the end”. After the other apps are done, Devpit tries all of these apps again together, with one administrator prompt.

If you decline the prompt, or the retry fails, the summary shows the command to run yourself in an administrator terminal. If an app has to be closed first, its row says so, for example “close Contoso App and retry”.

The manual fix

Section titled “The manual fix”
  1. Close the app you want to update.
  2. Open Windows Terminal or PowerShell as administrator: right-click it and choose Run as administrator.
  3. List what can be upgraded:
Terminal window
winget upgrade
  1. Upgrade the package by its ID. --id selects the package and -e means an exact match:
Terminal window
winget upgrade --id Publisher.PackageName -e

Replace Publisher.PackageName with the ID from the list.

  1. If it says the application is running, see winget 0x8A150101.

Sources

Section titled “Sources”

Common questions

Is winget 0x80073D28 dangerous?

No. It is a permission message. The package installer needs administrator rights, and winget did not get them. Nothing is damaged and you can try again as administrator.

Why did winget not show a UAC prompt?

Winget normally asks for elevation when a package needs it. Microsoft's WSL project has a public report where winget upgrade Microsoft.WSL failed with 0x80073d28 instead of showing the prompt, so the prompt does not always appear.

How do I update several apps that need administrator rights?

Open one terminal as administrator and run winget upgrade for each package by its ID. Devpit's Update Everything collects these apps and updates them together at the end with a single administrator prompt.