How do you run a command as an administrator from the Windows command line?

I have a small script that performs the build and install process on Windows for a Bazaar repository I'm managing. I'm trying to run the script with elevated, administrative privileges from within the Windows shell (cmd.exe)--just as if I'd right-clicked it and chosen Run as Administrator, but without using any method that requires use of the graphical interface.

Solution 1:

Press the start button. In the search box type "cmd", then press Ctrl+Shift+Enter

Solution 2:

All you have to do is use the runas command to run your program as Administrator (with a caveat).

runas /user:Administrator "cmdName parameters"

In my case, this was

runas /user:Administrator "cmd.exe /C %CD%\installer.cmd %CD%"

Note that you must use Quotation marks, else the runas command will gobble up the switch option to cmd.

Also note that the administrative shell (cmd.exe) starts up in the C:\Windows\System32 folder. This isn't what I wanted, but it was easy enough to pass in the current path to my installer, and to reference it using an absolute path.

Caveat: Enable the admin account

Using runas this way requires the administrative account to be enabled, which is not the default on Windows 7 or Vista. However, here is a great tutorial on how to enable it, in three different ways:

I myself enabled it by opening Administrative Tools, Local Security Policy, then navigating to Local Policies\Security Options and changing the value of the Accounts: Administrative Account Status policy to Enabled, which is none of the three ways shown in the link.

An even easier way to accomplish this:

C:> net user Administrator /active:yes

Solution 3:

A batch/WSH hybrid is able to call ShellExecute to display the UAC elevation dialog...

@if (1==1) @if(1==0) @ELSE
@echo off&SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS
>nul 2>&1 "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\cacls.exe" "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\config\system"||(
    cscript //E:JScript //nologo "%~f0"
    @goto :EOF
)
echo.Performing admin tasks...
REM call foo.exe
@goto :EOF
@end @ELSE
ShA=new ActiveXObject("Shell.Application")
ShA.ShellExecute("cmd.exe","/c \""+WScript.ScriptFullName+"\"","","runas",5);
@end

Solution 4:

:: ------- Self-elevating.bat --------------------------------------
@whoami /groups | find "S-1-16-12288" > nul && goto :admin
set "ELEVATE_CMDLINE=cd /d "%~dp0" & call "%~f0" %*"
findstr "^:::" "%~sf0">temp.vbs
cscript //nologo temp.vbs & del temp.vbs & exit /b

::: Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
::: Set objWshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
::: Set objWshProcessEnv = objWshShell.Environment("PROCESS")
::: strCommandLine = Trim(objWshProcessEnv("ELEVATE_CMDLINE"))
::: objShell.ShellExecute "cmd", "/c " & strCommandLine, "", "runas"
:admin -------------------------------------------------------------

@echo off
echo Running as elevated user.
echo Script file : %~f0
echo Arguments   : %*
echo Working dir : %cd%
echo.
:: administrator commands here
:: e.g., run shell as admin
cmd /k

For a demo: self-elevating.bat "path with spaces" arg2 3 4 "another long argument"

And this is another version that does not require creating a temp file.

<!-- : --- Self-Elevating Batch Script ---------------------------
@whoami /groups | find "S-1-16-12288" > nul && goto :admin
set "ELEVATE_CMDLINE=cd /d "%~dp0" & call "%~f0" %*"
cscript //nologo "%~f0?.wsf" //job:Elevate & exit /b

-->
<job id="Elevate"><script language="VBScript">
  Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
  Set objWshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
  Set objWshProcessEnv = objWshShell.Environment("PROCESS")
  strCommandLine = Trim(objWshProcessEnv("ELEVATE_CMDLINE"))
  objShell.ShellExecute "cmd", "/c " & strCommandLine, "", "runas"
</script></job>
:admin -----------------------------------------------------------

@echo off
echo Running as elevated user.
echo Script file : %~f0
echo Arguments   : %*
echo Working dir : %cd%
echo.
:: administrator commands here
:: e.g., run shell as admin
cmd /k

Solution 5:

Although @amr ali's code was great, I had an instance where my bat file contained > < signs, and it choked on them for some reason.

I found this instead. Just put it all before your code, and it works perfectly.

REM  --> Check for permissions
>nul 2>&1 "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\cacls.exe" "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\config\system"
REM --> If error flag set, we do not have admin.
if '%errorlevel%' NEQ '0' (
    echo Requesting administrative privileges...
    goto UACPrompt
) else ( goto gotAdmin )
:UACPrompt
    echo Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) > "%temp%\getadmin.vbs"
    echo UAC.ShellExecute "%~s0", "", "", "runas", 1 >> "%temp%\getadmin.vbs"
    "%temp%\getadmin.vbs"
    exit /B
:gotAdmin
    if exist "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" ( del "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" )
    pushd "%CD%"
    CD /D "%~dp0"
:--------------------------------------