How can I run something as Administrator via Cygwin's SSH?
Solution 1:
If you log in to sshd with password authentication, then you authenticate simultaneously to Windows and should be granted your account's administrative rights. If you log in with public key authentication, then sshd makes an end run around Windows authentication, and you'll only ever have standard user rights.
For more information, see Corinna's answer to this question from 2004. See also the recent thread on the Cygwin mailing list about admin rights over ssh.