Always Start an Application in Administrator Mode on Windows Vista
Many utilities need to be run as administrator in order to function properly, especially older utilities that haven't been updated to support Vista yet.
All shortcuts in Windows Vista have a special property that you can set that will allow the application to run as Administrator. This works perfectly for creating a batch file to restart a service, for instance.
To set this property, just right-click on any shortcut, and click the Advanced button on the Shortcut page to get to the Advanced Properties dialog.
You'll see a dialog with a checkbox for "Run as administrator".
From now on, the application will always run as administrator if you use the shortcut to launch it. (You'll be prompted by UAC if you have it enabled).
The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 05/2/07 and tagged with: Windows Vista, System Administration
I'm having a related problem, several applications (IE for one) will not start unless I run as administrator. They just cycle for a bit and then it stops. If I run as administrator, they seem to work. I am the only user on that machine, so I am an administrator. Why should I have to run as an administrator if I already am one. Plus if I try this solution, everything is greyed out, which I thought was due to the fact that I am already an administrator. Most programs have the run as administrator available on a right click, but some do not, so I have to use windows explorer to find the program.
I've always been a bit of a security nut. As such I've always run XP & 2000 from a limited account. This means certain apps need to be run as my one admin account, e.g. Nero 6, ISObuster, et cetera.
I don't mind right-clicking an application/shortcut, then going to "Run As," then inputting the admin password. But if there is a way where an application automatically launches the "Run As", or just runs as admin on XP, that'd be awesome.
Ideas?
Wow stupid me. XP has an almost-identical feature. Right click a shortcut (doesn't work directly on an exe), go to properties, then advanced, then check "Run with different credentials". Now the "Run As" dialog appears each time you execute the shortcut.
Sweet.
it would be nice in XP if you could prepopulate the "run as" credentials, so a user doesn't have to enter a username\password each time…any ideas there?
In response to Tim:
********************************I'm having a related problem, several applications (IE for one) will not start unless I run as administrator. They just cycle for a bit and then it stops. If I run as administrator, they seem to work. I am the only user on that machine, so I am an administrator. Why should I have to run as an administrator if I already am one. Plus if I try this solution, everything is greyed out, which I thought was due to the fact that I am already an administrator. Most programs have the run as administrator available on a right click, but some do not, so I have to use windows explorer to find the program. ****** Tim on May 3, 2007 8:09 am
Below is a quote from James Bannan from within a document I found when searching for an answer as to Why Administrators didn't have Adminstrator rights in Vista.
"Why administrators ain't administrators "
By default in Vista, the first account you create is a member of the Administrators group. You can check that by go into Computer Management (right-click My Computer, Manage) and navigate to Local Users and Groups.
Take a look at the properties of your own user account under "Member Of", or look at the members of the Administrators group, and there you are.
The local Administrator account is also listed there, which should be reassurance enough that you have full local admin access.
However, let’s suppose you want to do something like change all the security permissions on the C:\Program Files folder. As an administrator you should be able to, right? Wrong.
Right-click on Program Files and select Properties. Go to the Security tab and there’s a list of currently-assigned access rights.
Click Edit, go through the standard confirmation, and then try to change something. You can’t - everything is greyed out.
However, turn UAC off and suddenly all is revealed - you now have full access to the underlying filesystem returned to you.
There are a number of ways to disable UAC, and I’ll go into them in greater detail once I get some info back from Microsoft, but a straightforward way to do it is to go into the Control Panel, switch to Classic View, double-click User Accounts, and select “Turn User Account Control on or off�. This takes you to another window, where you simply untick the checkbox to disable UAC, hit OK and then reboot.
Hi
Is it possible to launch an application in Administrator mode though command prompt. I mean any swich is available?
How can i do this programmatically? There's a API Functions for it?
For example:
I want to permit my app create the shortcuts with this option checked…
Thanks in advance.
I have a problem when im trying to install my video card it says "Setup will only run in administrator mode.Setup is aborting,"Can any1 tell me the reason? thx
I've tried to do this, but the "run as administrator" tab is disabled. Any ideas?
This is my computer, I AM the administrator. I shouldn't have to choose to run everything as an administrator. I don't see the point. How do I set Vista so I am always the administrator and I can run whatever I want when I want?
you ARE the admin, but that feature isnt meant to make life hard on you, malware can control your computer and be held back by that annoying feature…
Best I can tell, Vista is malware.
I'm having the same problem - my run as admin boxes are greyed out, but my UAC is turned OFF already, and my programs won't run.
I have the exact same problem! the admin box is greyed out and I need to run DMDX to do my final uni project!
Please help!!
Indeed I'm the Admin of my computer, and for this specific program I'm trying to launch, the "Run as Admin" icon is grayed out and I need it to run the program. This is frustrating. It shows the shield right next to the icon, which leads me to believe that there is a security setting that is putting it there and not allowing me to run it. Which is it though?
I used to be able to run Internet explorer fine but now I have to run it as an administrator so I’ve ticked the run as administrator box under the shortcut property tab. But now every time I run EI it comes up with a box that says Iexplorer.exe is made by an ‘unknown publisher’, this is a pain because it comes up every time I open IE. I have had a malware problem recently but I think I’ve got rid of it using AVG, Spybot and Ad-Aware. Apparently if you disable UAC it can lead to more problems with malware taking over so I’m reluctant to do this and don’t see why I should if I didn’t have this problem before.
Starting application as an administrator??? This is such a NO-NO in general it's unbelievable Windows actually REQUIRES it. Wow. I mean, wow. Glad I don't use it.