4 April 2020

Run Application as Different User

Windows makes it incredibly easy to run an application or script as another user on your computer. I find that I most often use this to run administrative or domain tools, when I’m logged in as just a normal user.

Method 1

This is the easiest method. While it took me a little while to remember it, I now use it almost daily and without even thinking about it.

Press and hold down the ‘Shift’ key on your keyboard, while you right-click on the program you want to launch.

This will only work on executable (EXE) files or shortcuts to executable files. If you try this and don’t see the option, then it is not an executable file.

Method 2

This method will create a shortcut that “knows” to launch an application as another user.

Create a shortcut to your executable

Right-click on the shortcut and modify the “Target” to:

runas /user:DOMAIN\USERNAME "path to executable"

Click ‘OK’. Then launch your shortcut. You will get prompted for your password everytime you launch your shortcut.

If you need to store the password with your shortcut, then modify the “Target” to this instead:

runas /savecred /user:DOMAIN\USERNAME "path to executable"

Click ‘OK’. Then right-click and select “Run as Administrator” the first time you use the shortcut. You will be prompted for the user password and it will get saved. From then on, just clicking the shortcut will launch it as your desired user.

Method 2.5

Alright this is basically the same method as above, so I didn’t feel right calling it a third method.

You can take the same trick from “Method 2” and just use it to run an application from a command prompt window.

C:\> runas /user:DOMAIN\USERNAME "path to executable"

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Posted April 4, 2020 by IT.G.c in category "Windows 10", "Windows 2012/2012R2", "Windows 2016", "Windows 2019

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