so basically, just the topic subject; i installed the game and it ran as expected, updated my sound drivers for an unrelated purpose but that's the only other thing i did that i can think of (and can't roll back it seems), then suddenly race the sun is demanding administrative privileges. anyone else have this or similar issue(s)? tried un/reinstalling the game to no avail.

figured it out. for any curious, a key was set in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers for the game's executable with a RUNASADMIN flag. actually, several GOG games were in there; the last 6 alphabetically.

highly odd. something to do with the GOG installer maybe?

anyway, removing the keys and rebooting made the game work under non-privileged accounts as expected.