how to force "Run As" Administrator??

Hi,

I do network administration for a small business with a few stand-alone Windows 7 desktop computers. I configured the computers with an Administrator account and a Standard user account for the person using the machine. The Standard account needs to run software that requires Admin privileges and it always prompts for the Admin password. Is it possible to force these programs to run as administrator without prompting for the password??

I apologize if this has been answered on another thread or forum but I've searched for quite a while and haven't found anything that actually works!

Thank you.

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Originally Posted by lambda

The Standard account needs to run software that requires Admin privileges and it always prompts for the Admin password. Is it possible to force these programs to run as administrator without prompting for the password??

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Why does the application need administrator privalages - is it trying to access a particular file owned by "administrator"? If so, your solution is probably to set permissions on that file (or, most likely, files) to allow the standard user to use it. It'd probably be best to write a script to set the permissions for you, specially if you have several files and several computers to deal with.

Thanks for the quick reply!

One of the programs that I needs to be run with Admin privileges is the Cisco QuickVPN app. Another is the Corel Draw X3 Suite Font Navigator program (for loading fonts into Corel Draw). I assume QuickVPN needs admin privileges because it temporarily modifies the computer's network configuration and Font Navigator probably needs to be Admin because it's working with Windows fonts???

Can you right click the exe and go to properties > Compatibility > Privilege Level and tick the "Run this program as Administrator" box.

Let me know if that works

This may be what you are looking for:

CPAU

it allows standard users to run an application in an administrators userspace. Not an ideal security situation.

hold down the left shift key and then right click on the exe you want to run as and think there is an option to "run as different user"

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Originally Posted by mac_shinobi

hold down the left shift key and then right click on the exe you want to run as and think there is an option to "run as different user"

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Learned something new today, thanks :)

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Originally Posted by lambda

TI assume QuickVPN needs admin privileges because it temporarily modifies the computer's network configuration and Font Navigator probably needs to be Admin because it's working with Windows fonts???

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Good point. In the past, I've used AutoIt to force a program to Run As an administrator: you simply write an AutoIt script that runs your application using the RunAs function, which also takes a username and password. AutoIT lets you compile scripts into self-contained executables so users can't easily open the script and figure out the password, although I wouldn't recommend it as completly water-tight security.

make a shortcut with the following path when it asks for which exe / app you want to link the shortcut to and point it to :

Code:

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%windir%\system32\runas.exe /user:domain\user.name "path to exe"

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Will still prompt for at least a password to be entered for the username specified in the above shortcut path, not tested on win 7 propertly although it did work when I was launching an mmc

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Originally Posted by dhicks

Good point. In the past, I've used AutoIt to force a program to Run As an administrator: you simply write an AutoIt script that runs your application using the RunAs function, which also takes a username and password. AutoIT lets you compile scripts into self-contained executables so users can't easily open the script and figure out the password, although I wouldn't recommend it as completly water-tight security.

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Sounds like better security than giving the user an admin password. Will this work on Windows 7? How do I set it up?? Thanks!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mac_shinobi

make a shortcut with the following path when it asks for which exe / app you want to link the shortcut to and point it to :

Code:

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%windir%\system32\runas.exe /user:domain\user.name "path to exe"

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Will still prompt for at least a password to be entered for the username specified in the above shortcut path, not tested on win 7 propertly although it did work when I was launching an mmc

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I've seen something like this on another forum where supposedly you only have to enter the password once and it saves it, but I could never get it to launch the program, it would just hang in the cmd window.

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Originally Posted by lambda

Will this work on Windows 7?

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Yes - we've used AutoIT to cludge together an installer for a couple of particularly crummy applications that have no other installation method than to run through the executable installer, and everything works fine on Windows 7.

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How do I set it up??

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Simply go to:

AutoIt - AutoItScript

...and download AutoIT. It really is very well put together - it's a full development environment, but very easy to use. Simply create a new script, look up the RunAs command in the online help (you'll probably only need a one-line script) and compile your script to an executable.

I'm sure i saw a small program, it would encrypt the admin password and create an EXE that would load another EXE as admin.

EDIT: this wasn't it, but looks similar

Hello again! Thank you all for your replies. I ended up using a program called RunasSpc (Runas Password) It was easy to use and did what I needed it to do. I'm sure it's not the most elegant solution, but it'll have to do for now until I find something better. Thanks again!