automatically run as a different user

[JiveMasterT]

i need to be able to automatically run a program as a different user. i want to be able to double click and icon and it will automatically run as like the administrator without having to enter the username and password like you do with the "run as..." thing in the right click menu. any help please!?

[John Veteran]

Not possible. Change the permissions on the program and any files/registry keys it uses (Y)

[MegaManXcalibur]

Actually there is a way to do this...

Right-click on the programs launch icon and select properies from the menu. A dialog box will appear, one of the things you can edit is the "Target" which is what tells Windows which program to launch when the icon is clicked.

Lets say your want to run Gaim (we will say its located at C:\Program Files\Gaim) using an account called Admin (clever name huh? I didn't think so either). The target field should read C:\Program Files\Gaim all you have to do is edit the line so it looks like this...

runas /user:Admin C:\Program Files\Gaim

The runas command will run that program as the desired user (Admin in this case). Just a note if the user you want to run the program as has a space in the name (like Jack Daniels) you will need to encase it in quotes so it would look like this...

runas /user:"Jack Daniels" C:\ProgramFiles\Gaim

If the account is password protected (as it should be) a command prompt will appear requesting the user's password. Type it in press enter and the program will be running as the desired user.

[John Veteran]

You still have to know the password, which is what I think he was trying to avoid...

[JiveMasterT]

  gameguy said:

Not possible. Change the permissions on the program and any files/registry keys it uses (Y)

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unfortunately it is xp home, so i cant....

unless you know of another way to do this?

[John Veteran]

Boot into Safe Mode and you'll be able to change permissions (Y) Or use the cacls command.

[MegaManXcalibur]

  gameguy said:

You still have to know the password, which is what I think he was trying to avoid...

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Sorry about that, I have no idea how I missed that part!

But anyways the only way to really do that is, as gameguy said, boot into safe mode and change the permissions for the program. But that won't really solve any problems with registry permissions or problems with writing the areas of the hard drive that users should not have permission to write to.

Yeah its kind of a pain but if it permissions were easily bypassed it would kind of defeat their reason for exsisting.

Just an idea but you may be able to theorectically create a VBScript file that would store the password for a user and have it launch the program automatically as that user. But that would be a huge security risk have a password in an easily readable format, but its a thought.

[jakkyl]

He could encrypt the VBScript into a VBE so that if anyone opens the files its garbage (granted you can find scripts out there to decode a VBE file......but it makes it a little more difficutl anyway).

Just another idea :)

  MegaManXcalibur said:

Just an idea but you may be able to theorectically create a VBScript file that would store the password for a user and have it launch the program automatically as that user.  But that would be a huge security risk have a password in an easily readable format, but its a thought.

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[em_te]

Do some research on the "Task Scheduler" in Windows. It allows you to create a task that uses a specific user account. Then find out if you could make a shortcut to run a task on demand.