Multiple users use the same Windows XP PC. They have no admin rights, but after logging in they all need to use the same application that needs to be started with admin rights.
How would I do this?
A couple of possibilities:
Look into using RunAs
with the /savecred
switch. Be aware that this is a huge security hole though since if the user finds out that the credentials have been saved, they will be able to launch anything under the Administrator account using RunAs
Launch the program via a VBScript that has the Administrator credentials in it. Use screnc.exe
to encrypt the .vbs
into a .vbe
. It's easily decrypted though, plus Microsoft seem to have taken screnc.exe
off their downloads area.
It's very rarely the case that the application actually needs to be run with admin privileges, but if that's actually the case here, consider running it under the SYSTEM
account.
Otherwise, my preferred solution, after saving the system configs/doing a backup and warning/threatening the users is to grant user-level accounts the required permissions (usually write
or modify
) to the registry and/or file locations the program is trying to access. If support for this products doesn't know what those locations are, you can find out with Process Monitor.