Opening Explorer shell with admin privileges on XP (with IE7 installed)

I used to demote my user account so that it had no admin priveleges and used a 'sudo-like' trick where you create a shortcut to IE6 and enabled the 'Run with different credentials' option to open a shell window as local admin so I could install and uninstall things, etc.

When I upgraded to IE7 this stopped working - IE7 launches Windows Explorer separately.

I've tried running Windows Explorer with different credentials but this does not work.

Does anyone know how to re-enable this behaviour so that I don't have to run my computer on a daily basis with administrator privileges?

Answer

I always use the following command to launch a separate explorer shell on XP/IE7. Looks like /separate switch is undocumented (haven't seen it much on the web till recently).

Use this syntax in "Target" of an Explorer.exe shortcut:

runas /user:ComputerName\AdminName "C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe /separate"

• Replace ComputerName with yours (may be your Domain), ditto AdminName. Remember, all this above goes in the "Target" field of a Shortcut to C:\Windows\explorer.exe


• Enter the Admin password in the Pop-up Command Prompt and you should see the separate explorer shell (running under the administrator account)

If you change the Toolbar Background of Explorer while logged in as the Admin using gpedit.msc (for XP Pro), when you start a RunAs Admin Explorer instance from the User session, you will see the unique background... and KNOW you're running Admin Explorer (instructions here).

My example tested on XP x64 with IE7 works great:

~Sef.