How to "Run As..." another user

[Enzo Marinelli]

OK, people, if this is already out there, I declare myself unfit to find it :cry:

I NEED to be able to run any shortcut or executable file as another user, while being logged on with certain account.

For instance, if I have "User A" logged on at the moment, I need to be able to do something like this: "Right click on the program.exe file, select Run As... and then enter my credentials for User B".

Is this possible in any way? :cry:

[Enzo Marinelli]

Anyone :(?

[Brandon Live Veteran]

If you're running as a non-admin, that's what should happen I believe.

[null_]

  Enzo Marinelli said:

OK, people, if this is already out there, I declare myself unfit to find it :cry:

I NEED to be able to run any shortcut or executable file as another user, while being logged on with certain account.

For instance, if I have "User A" logged on at the moment, I need to be able to do something like this: "Right click on the program.exe file, select Run As... and then enter my credentials for User B".

Is this possible in any way? :cry:

This should be available by using a command prompt. For instance, with a little registry modification you could add "Run as another user..." to your context menu specifically for EXE's and shortcuts, which would pop up a command prompt window asking you for the password. It's not exactly the cleanest solution but it should work.

In Windows Vista, it would seem that the "Run as.." option was changed specifically for "Run as administrator", at least when running under a normal Administrator account with User Account Control enabled. The password prompt behavior may be different on standard user accounts.

[Enzo Marinelli]

  iCeFuSiOn said:

This should be available by using a command prompt. For instance, with a little registry modification you could add "Run as another user..." to your context menu specifically for EXE's and shortcuts, which would pop up a command prompt window asking you for the password. It's not exactly the cleanest solution but it should work.

In Windows Vista, it would seem that the "Run as.." option was changed specifically for "Run as administrator", at least when running under a normal Administrator account with User Account Control enabled. The password prompt behavior may be different on standard user accounts.

The problem with that is that the only thing I can "Run As..." is the command prompt, 'cause if I try to "Run As..." any other executable, I get a message saying that RUNAS is disabled :cry:

[Brandon Live Veteran]

  Enzo Marinelli said:

The problem with that is that the only thing I can "Run As..." is the command prompt, 'cause if I try to "Run As..." any other executable, I get a message saying that RUNAS is disabled :cry:

What other executables? You mean you get that message if you right-click and select Run As Adminstrator? Or if you try and change the properties to always run elevated?

[null_]

  Brandon Live said:

What other executables? You mean you get that message if you right-click and select Run As Adminstrator? Or if you try and change the properties to always run elevated?

I believe they mean "RUNAS.EXE" from a command prompt is not working correctly, not the elevation stuff from within the Windows shell itself.

[Enzo Marinelli]

  Brandon Live said:

What other executables? You mean you get that message if you right-click and select Run As Adminstrator? Or if you try and change the properties to always run elevated?

  iCeFuSiOn said:

I believe they mean "RUNAS.EXE" from a command prompt is not working correctly, not the elevation stuff from within the Windows shell itself.

Let's see if I can make myself clear:

If I go to the command line, I can do this, and it works OK:

runas /user:"MyPC\Username" cmd

That would open another command line, being run as "Username"

However, if I do this:

runas /user:"MyPC\Username" "C:\Program files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"

I get this message:

[null_]

  Enzo Marinelli said:

Let's see if I can make myself clear:

If I go to the command line, I can do this, and it works OK:

runas /user:"MyPC\Username" cmd

That would open another command line, being run as "Username"

However, if I do this:

runas /user:"MyPC\Username" "C:\Program files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe"

I get this message:

Does the RUNAS command work for any other executable, for instance "%ProgramFiles%\Movie Maker\MOVIEMK.EXE"? By the look of it, you can not use the RUNAS command with Internet Explorer any more, perhaps this is due to Protected Mode.

[Enzo Marinelli]

  iCeFuSiOn said:

Does the RUNAS command work for any other executable, for instance "%ProgramFiles%\Movie Maker\MOVIEMK.EXE"? By the look of it, you can not use the RUNAS command with Internet Explorer any more, perhaps this is due to Protected Mode.

WOW, MAN, YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE GENIOUS!!! I LOVE YOU

That must be it, since I was able to run Windows Movie Maker...

Now, should I disable Protected Mode for Internet Explorer on MY account, or the account I'm trying to run from?

By the way, thank you very much, iCeFuSiOn :)

[Linkinfamous]

  Enzo Marinelli said:

Now, should I disable Protected Mode for Internet Explorer on MY account, or the account I'm trying to run from?

What could possibly compell you to want to run IE as a admin? That's always a bad idea. They put it in an ultra sandboxed mode for a reason.

[Enzo Marinelli]

  MioTheGreat said:

What could possibly compell you to want to run IE as a admin? That's always a bad idea. They put it in an ultra sandboxed mode for a reason.

I don't want to run it as admin, but as another standard user...

[TurboTuna]

hiding your pr0n eh? ;)

[Enzo Marinelli]

  TurboTuna said:

hiding your pr0n eh? ;)

LOL! :rofl:

No, I just need to test the behavior of some software I'm developing

[null_]

  Enzo Marinelli said:

WOW, MAN, YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE GENIOUS!!! I LOVE YOU

That must be it, since I was able to run Windows Movie Maker...

Now, should I disable Protected Mode for Internet Explorer on MY account, or the account I'm trying to run from?

By the way, thank you very much, iCeFuSiOn :)

Seeing as Internet Explorer is detecting the RUNAS command I'd try disabling Protected Mode on the target account (the one you are trying to launch Internet Explorer with using RUNAS). If that doesn't work, try disabling it on your current user account as well.

Note that I would not recommend disabling Protected Mode Internet Explorer for any extended amount of time and should only be done to test out whatever you are testing.

[Enzo Marinelli]

  iCeFuSiOn said:

Seeing as Internet Explorer is detecting the RUNAS command I'd try disabling Protected Mode on the target account (the one you are trying to launch Internet Explorer with using RUNAS). If that doesn't work, try disabling it on your current user account as well.

Note that I would not recommend disabling Protected Mode Internet Explorer for any extended amount of time and should only be done to test out whatever you are testing.

OK, I'll try it that way then!

Yeah, I'll be reenabling it once I'm done... thanx again!

[Enzo Marinelli]

  iCeFuSiOn said:

Does the RUNAS command work for any other executable, for instance "%ProgramFiles%\Movie Maker\MOVIEMK.EXE"? By the look of it, you can not use the RUNAS command with Internet Explorer any more, perhaps this is due to Protected Mode.

It didn't work :(

I tried disabling Protected Mode on IE for both accounts, and it doesn't open...

RUNAS also wont open the explorer.exe program from another account :cry:

[Enzo Marinelli]

Anybody else?

[Enzo Marinelli]

I can't believe it... I haven't been able to find a solution for this anywhere...

Anybody know what else could I try?

[Brandon Live Veteran]

What if you use "Runas" to start a new CMD window, and then run iexplore.exe from that window?

Then again - why are you trying to do this in the first place? What difference does it make which account you're running under if they're both standard users? Are you trying to hide your tracks from someone or something like that?

Usually when you want to do something as another user, you'd just switch users... that's what Fast User Switching is for.

[Enzo Marinelli]

Brandon,

As I said in this post, I'm developing some ActiveX and I don't want to mess my personal account.

No, both accounts are not standard users. One is Administrator, the other standard.

See, this is strange. I could launch, for instance, Word, from a RUNAS cmd window. From there, I could run iexplorer.exe, right clicking on it :s BUT, I haven't been able to run other processes, such as explorer.exe...

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Wait what? Why would you try to run another copy of the shell as another user? That's probably not a good idea. And I bet it's not starting because it's detecting that Explorer is already running...

[Enzo Marinelli]

  Brandon Live said:

Wait what? Why would you try to run another copy of the shell as another user? That's probably not a good idea. And I bet it's not starting because it's detecting that Explorer is already running...

Weird, you could do just that on Windows < Vista... :/

[Brandon Live Veteran]

No you couldn't. Not by just typing "explorer.exe" in a command window, that would not spawn a new process. There's an option ("launch folder windows in a seperate process") which is not enabled by default, which could maybe let you achieve this. But it's really not something I'd recommend, the shell isn't really meant to run like that.

[Enzo Marinelli]

  Brandon Live said:

No you couldn't. Not by just typing "explorer.exe" in a command window, that would not spawn a new process. There's an option ("launch folder windows in a seperate process") which is not enabled by default, which could maybe let you achieve this. But it's really not something I'd recommend, the shell isn't really meant to run like that.

Thank you, I'll try that.

By the way, you COULD do that in Windows < Vista (XP/2003/2000/Me/98SE/98/95). I could send you a video of me doing it if you want ;)

That's the whole point of this thread: I could do all this in previous versions of Windows, and now in Vista I'm having these issues.

The way I did it was right clicking on any program or shortcut, Run As, then entering credentials for ANY other user, and no matter which program it was (explorer.exe included) it ran perfectly.