How do I run the Windows 7 Explorer shell with Administrator Privileges by default?

The Windows 7 shell (Explorer) can be made to run with Administrator privileges by this manual process:

1. Kill Explorer shell by holding down Shift+Ctrl, right-clicking the Shut down button in the Start Menu, and selecting Exit Explorer
2. Start Task Manager with Ctrl+Shift+Esc
3. Elevate Task Manager privileges by going to Processes tab and selecting Show processes from all users
4. Then start up a new instance of the shell by File | Run in Task Manager, typing in explorer, and selecting the Create this task with administrative privileges.

After following the above process, the Windows shell will be running with administrative privileges, and any programs it launches will also have administrative privileges. This makes performing tasks that require the privilege far easier, particularly for command-line applications, which usually fail silently or with an Access denied. message rather than giving an opportunity to use UAC to elevate the process's privileges.

What I'm interested in, though, is creating an account which uses a privileged shell by default, rather than having to follow this laborious process every time. How can it be done?

Solution 1:

As far as I know you can't create an account like this, but if you log in as "Administrator" (Not merely as an account that is a member of the Administrators group - that's not good enough.) then everything you launch will be launched elevated.

Not something you should do normally, but if you need to then you need to.

Solution 2:

This is a terrible idea. You want to go back to the Win XP days where everything runs as Administrator? You're giving up all the security gains made by Vista and Windows 7. GUI applications should all invoke UAC, so there's no need for this hack in that case.

If you need to run command line apps as administrator, simply open an administrator command prompt. It's very easy, just press WIN, type 'cmd', then press ctrl+shift+enter. Or even simpler, you can make a shortcut to cmd, and in the settings set it to 'Run as administrator'

Solution 3:

As to the original question if you are running the ENTIRE shell with admin rights you might as well log in with an admin account and be done with it. You're basically destroying the purpose of the account division as far as security is concerned. What I'd recommend is running explorer as a separate administrator account.

Easy solution for launching explorer as admin:

• Run a CMD window as your admin account.
• Type 'explorer'
• Enjoy explorer with admin rights

Note: This does not work in a PowerShell window and I've no clue why. For example.. Launching a PowerShell window as an admin user (and I'm not talking about run as administrator here) and entering 'explorer' or 'invoke-item explorer.exe' will launch the window but with only user rights; however, typing 'CMD' in that same PowerShell window and then just 'explorer' will work.

Other super fun hidden thing note: Most people don't know this but there's a check box to always run PowerShell windows as administrator so you don't have to always shift-right click and select it (since most of the stuff you do in PowerShell requires admin anyway). To find it:

1. If pinned (or in the dumbass metro thing probably too) (win 7/8) to taskbar Shift+RightClick the shortcut otherwise just go to properties of shortcut
2. Click Properties
3. Click Shortcut Tab
4. Click Advanced...
5. Check box 'Run as administrator';ok;ok
6. Live life happier