“Fast switching” for Windows XP in a domain environment :)

“Fast switching” for Windows XP in a domain environment :)

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To better understand the process that I am about to explain please become familiar with the Microsoft Article KB294676.

Please note that in no way shape or form am I taking credit for Microsoft’s work, I am just using it as a reference to further educate my friends and colleagues. This article can be found at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/294676

Article ID: 294676 - Last Review: January 15, 2006 - Revision: 2.2 How to enable and use the "Run As" command when running programs in Windows
This article was previously published under Q294676
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This short tutorial will show you how to access an administrator account while logged in to a regular user account. This process is great when working on a computer remotely and having the need to run various admin tasks. There is an “exploit” that takes advantage of Microsoft Schedule service “at” and allows you to access an admin account with out a password, but I’ll leave that for another day.


Step 1: Launch a command prompt from a regular user account.

Step 2: Type: runas /user:Administrator “cmd.exe” (Replace Administrator with another account if needed)

Step 3: You will be prompted for the account password

You should be looking at something similar to:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(c) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
C:\Documents and Settings\esalazar>runas /user:Administrator “cmd.exe”

If this command runs successfully you should be looking at a new command prompt shell similar to:

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(c) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

*note keep this window open; do not run any command from here yet, unless you know what you are doing =)

Step 4: Open task manager, either by using the ctrl + alt + del method or by running tskmgr.

Step 5: From the process tab find and terminated the “explorer.exe” process. FYI this will cause your desktop to disappear so don’t panic.

Step 6: From the new command prompt that we opened, type explorer.exe – e.g. C:\WINDOWS\system32>explorer.exe

Tada! You are now logged in as an administrator.

After you are done doing whatever it is that you needed admin rights to do restart the computer, this will prevent any unauthorized changes by regular users. You can also reverse the process and change the profile back to the original user.

Note: This also works in domain environments if you have a network admin account. However, you need to specify your domain when entering your account. e.g.

C:\Documents and Settings\esalazar>runas /user:domain@Administrator “cmd.exe”