Running a command as Administrator using PowerShell

Question

You know how if you re the administrative user of a system and you can just right click say  a batch script and run it as Administrator without entering the administrator password   I m wondering how to do this with a PowerShell script  I do not want to have to enter my password  I just want to mimic the right-click Run As Administrator method   Everything I read so far requires you to supply the administrator password

User · Answer

Self elevating PowerShell script

Windows 8.1 / PowerShell 4.0 +

One line :)

if (!([Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal][Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent()).IsInRole([Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole] "Administrator")) { Start-Process powershell.exe "-NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File `"$PSCommandPath`"" -Verb RunAs; exit }

# Your script here

User · Answer

Another simpler solution is that you may also right click on  C  Windows System32 cmd exe  and choose  Run as Administrator  then you can run any app as administrator without providing any password

User · Answer

It turns out it was too easy  All you have to do is run a cmd as administrator  Then type explorer exe and hit enter  That opens up Windows nbsp Explorer  Now right click on your PowerShell script that you want to run  choose  run with PowerShell  which will launch it in PowerShell in administrator mode   It may ask you to enable the policy to run  type Y and hit enter  Now the script will run in PowerShell as administrator  In case it runs all red  that means your policy didn t take affect yet  Then try again and it should work fine

User · Answer

You can create a batch file    bat  that runs your powershell script with administrative privileges when double-clicked  In this way  you do not need to change anything in your powershell script To do this  create a batch file with the same name and location of your powershell script and then put the following content in it    echo off  set scriptFileName   n0 set scriptFolderPath   dp0 set powershellScriptFileName  scriptFileName  ps1  powershell -Command  Start-Process powershell   -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -NoExit -Command    cd      scriptFolderPath        amp         powershellScriptFileName           -Verb RunAs    That s it   Here is the explanation   Assuming your powershell script is in the path C  Temp ScriptTest ps1  your batch file must have the path C  Temp ScriptTest bat  When someone execute this batch file  the following steps will occur    The cmd will execute the command  powershell -Command  Start-Process powershell   -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -NoExit -Command    cd     C  Temp       amp        ScriptTest ps1          -Verb RunAs   A new powershell session will open and the following command will be executed   Start-Process powershell  -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -NoExit -Command   cd    C  Temp      amp       ScriptTest ps1       -Verb RunAs  Another new powershell session with administrative privileges will open in the system32 folder and the following arguments will be passed to it   -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -NoExit -Command  cd   C  Temp     amp      ScriptTest ps1     The following command will be executed with administrative privileges   cd  C  Temp    amp     ScriptTest ps1    Once the script path and name arguments are double quoted  they can contain space or single quotation mark characters      The current folder will change from system32 to C  Temp and the script ScriptTest ps1 will be executed  Once the parameter -NoExit was passed  the window wont be closed  even if your powershell script throws some exception

User · Answer

I am using the solution below  It handles stdout stderr via transcript feature and passes exit code correctly to parent process  You need to adjust transcript path filename   If  -NOT   Security Principal WindowsPrincipal  Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent    IsInRole  Security Principal WindowsBuiltInRole   Administrator         echo    Respawning PowerShell child process with elevated privileges     pinfo   New-Object System Diagnostics ProcessStartInfo    pinfo FileName    powershell     pinfo Arguments     amp        myinvocation mycommand definition          pinfo Verb    RunAs     pinfo RedirectStandardError    false    pinfo RedirectStandardOutput    false    pinfo UseShellExecute    true    p   New-Object System Diagnostics Process    p StartInfo    pinfo    p Start     Out-Null    p WaitForExit     echo    Child process finished    type  C  jenkins transcript txt    Remove-Item  C  jenkins transcript txt    Exit  p ExitCode   Else     echo  Child process starting with admin privileges    Start-Transcript -Path  C  jenkins transcript txt       Rest of your script goes here  it will be executed with elevated privileges

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You can also force the application to open as administrator  if you have an administrator account  of course     Locate the file  right click   properties   Shortcut   Advanced and check Run as Administrator  Then Click OK

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Here s a self-elevating snippet for Powershell scripts which preserves the working directory   if     Security Principal WindowsPrincipal  Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent    IsInRole  Security Principal WindowsBuiltInRole   Administrator         Start-Process PowerShell -Verb RunAs  -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command   cd   pwd    amp    PSCommandPath           exit       Your script here   Preserving the working directory is important for scripts that perform path-relative operations  Almost all of the other answers do not preserve this path  which can cause unexpected errors in the rest of the script   If you d rather not use a self-elevating script snippet  and instead just want an easy way to launch a script as adminstrator  eg  from the Explorer context-menu   see my other answer here  https   stackoverflow com a 57033941 2441655

User · Answer

This behavior is by design  There are multiple layers of security since Microsoft really didn t want  ps1 files to be the latest email virus  Some people find this to be counter to the very notion of task automation  which is fair  The Vista  security model is to  de-automate  things  thus making the user okay them   However  I suspect if you launch powershell itself as elevated  it should be able to run batch files without requesting the password again until you close powershell

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If the current console is not elevated and the operation you re trying to do requires elevated privileges then you can start powershell with the Run as Administrator option   PS gt  Start-Process powershell -Verb runAs  https   docs microsoft com powershell module Microsoft PowerShell Management Start-Process

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The most reliable way I ve found is to wrap it in a self-elevating  bat file    echo off NET SESSION 1 gt NUL 2 gt NUL IF  ERRORLEVEL  EQU 0 GOTO ADMINTASKS CD   dp0 MSHTA  javascript  var shell   new ActiveXObject  shell application    shell ShellExecute    nx0            runas   0   close     EXIT   ADMINTASKS  powershell -file  c  users joecoder scripts admin tasks ps1   EXIT   The  bat checks if you re already admin and relaunches the script as Administrator if needed   It also prevents extraneous  cmd  windows from opening with the 4th parameter of ShellExecute   set to 0

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Here is an addition to Shay Levi s suggestion  just add these lines at the beginning of a script   if  -NOT   Security Principal WindowsPrincipal  Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent    IsInRole  Security Principal WindowsBuiltInRole   quot Administrator quot             arguments    quot  amp    quot    myinvocation mycommand definition    quot   quot    Start-Process powershell -Verb runAs -ArgumentList  arguments   Break    This results in the current script being passed to a new powershell process in Administrator mode  if current User has access to Administrator mode and the script is not launched as Administrator

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You need to rerun the script with administrative privileges and check if the script was launched in that mode  Below I have written a script that has two functions  DoElevatedOperations and DoStandardOperations  You should place your code that requires admin rights into the first one and standard operations into the second  The IsRunAsAdmin variable is used to identify the admin mode   My code is an simplified extract from the Microsoft script that is automatically generated when you create an app package for Windows Store apps    param       switch  IsRunAsAdmin    false      Get our script path  ScriptPath    Get-Variable MyInvocation  Value MyCommand Path      Launches an elevated process running the current script to perform tasks   that require administrative privileges   This function waits until the   elevated process terminates    function LaunchElevated         Set up command line arguments to the elevated process      RelaunchArgs    -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -file       ScriptPath      -IsRunAsAdmin         Launch the process and wait for it to finish     try                AdminProcess   Start-Process   PsHome PowerShell exe  -Verb RunAs -ArgumentList  RelaunchArgs -PassThru           catch                Error 0    Dump details about the last error         exit 1              Wait until the elevated process terminates     while     AdminProcess HasExited                 Start-Sleep -Seconds 2          function DoElevatedOperations       Write-Host  Do elevated operations     function DoStandardOperations       Write-Host  Do standard operations       LaunchElevated         Main script entry point    if   IsRunAsAdmin        DoElevatedOperations   else       DoStandardOperations

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This is a clarification      The powershell RUNAS   SAVECRED credential  is not safe   tried it and it adds the admin identity and password into the credential cache and can be used elsewhere OOPS   If you have done this I suggest you check and remove the entry   Review your program or code because the Microsoft policy is you cannot have mixed user and admin code in the same code blob without the UAC  the entry point  to execute the program as admin  This would be sudo  same thing  on Linux   The UAC has 3 types  dont see  a prompt or an entry point generated in the manifest of the program  It does not elevate the program so if there is no UAC and it needs admin it will fail  The UAC though as an administrator requirement is good  it prevents code execution without authentication and prevents the mixed codes scenario executing at user level

User · Answer

C  Users  username  AppData Roaming Microsoft Windows Start Menu Programs Windows PowerShell is where the shortcut of PowerShell resides  It too still goes to a different location to invoke the actual  exe    SystemRoot  system32 WindowsPowerShell v1 0 powershell exe    Since PowerShell is user-profile driven when permissions are concerned  if your username profile has the permissions to do something then under that profile  in PowerShell you would generally be able to do it as well  That being said  it would make sense that you would alter the shortcut located under your user profile  for example  C  Users  username  AppData Roaming Microsoft Windows Start Menu Programs Windows PowerShell   Right-click and click properties  Click  Advanced  button under the  Shortcut  tab located right below the  Comments  text field adjacent to the right of two other buttons   Open File Location  and  Change Icon   respectively   Check the checkbox that reads   Run as Administrator   Click OK  then Apply and OK  Once again right click the icon labeled  Windows PowerShell  located in C  Users  username  AppData Roaming Microsoft Windows Start Menu Programs Windows PowerShell and select  Pin to Start Menu Taskbar    Now whenever you click that icon  it will invoke the UAC for escalation  After selecting  YES   you will notice the PowerShell console open and it will be labeled  Administrator  on the top of the screen   To go a step further    you could right click that same icon shortcut in your profile location of Windows PowerShell and assign a keyboard shortcut that will do the exact same thing as if you clicked the recently added icon  So where it says  Shortcut Key  put in a keyboard key button combination like  Ctrl   Alt   PP  for PowerShell   Click Apply and OK   Now all you have to do is press that button combination you assigned and you will see UAC get invoked  and after you select  YES  you will see a PowerShell console appear and  Administrator  displayed on the title bar

User · Answer

I haven t seen my own way of doing it before  so  try this out  It is way easier to follow and has a much smaller footprint   if  bool   Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent    Groups -notcontains  S-1-5-32-544         Start Powershell -ArgumentList   amp    MyInvocation MyCommand Path   -Verb runas         Very simply  if the current Powershell session was called with administrator privileges  the Administrator Group well-known SID will show up in the Groups when you grab the current identity  Even if the account is a member of that group  the SID won t show up unless the process was invoked with elevated credentials   Nearly all of these answers are a variation on Microsoft s Ben Armstrong s immensely popular method of how to accomplish it while not really grasping what it is actually doing and how else to emulate the same routine

User · Answer

Here is how to run a elevated powershell command and collect its output form within a windows batch file in a single command i e not writing a ps1 powershell script    powershell -Command  Start-Process powershell -ArgumentList  -Command  Get-Process postgres   Select-Object Path   Select-Object -Index 0  Path   Out-File -encoding ASCII  env TEMP camp-postgres tmp  -Verb RunAs    Above you see i first launch a powershell with elevated prompt and then ask that to launch another powershell sub shell  to run the command

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The problem with the  pgk and  Andrew Odri s answers is when you have script parameters  specially when they are mandatory  You can solve this problem using the following approach    The user right-clicks the  ps1 file and selects  Run with PowerShell   ask him for the parameters through input boxes  this is a much better option than use the HelpMessage parameter attribute   The user executes the script through the console  allow him to pass the desired parameters and let the console force him to inform the mandatory ones    Here is how would be the code if the script had the ComputerName and Port mandatory parameters    CmdletBinding DefaultParametersetName  RunWithPowerShellContextMenu    param        parameter ParameterSetName  CallFromCommandLine         switch   CallFromCommandLine        parameter Mandatory  false  ParameterSetName  RunWithPowerShellContextMenu         parameter Mandatory  true  ParameterSetName  CallFromCommandLine         string   ComputerName        parameter Mandatory  false  ParameterSetName  RunWithPowerShellContextMenu         parameter Mandatory  true  ParameterSetName  CallFromCommandLine         UInt16   Port    function Assert-AdministrativePrivileges  bool   CalledFromRunWithPowerShellMenu         isAdministrator     Security Principal WindowsPrincipal  Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent    IsInRole  Security Principal WindowsBuiltInRole   Administrator       if   isAdministrator                if    CalledFromRunWithPowerShellMenu -and   CallFromCommandLine                          Must call itself asking for obligatory parameters              amp    PSCommandPath   script PSBoundParameters -CallFromCommandLine             Exit                     else               if    CalledFromRunWithPowerShellMenu -and   CallFromCommandLine                         serializedParams    Management Automation PSSerializer   Serialize  script PSBoundParameters                scriptStr                        serializedParams       serializedParams -replace                                params    Management Automation PSSerializer   Deserialize   serializedParams                    amp    PSCommandPath   params -CallFromCommandLine                  scriptBytes    System Text Encoding   Unicode GetBytes  scriptStr               encodedCommand    Convert   ToBase64String  scriptBytes                 If this script is called from another one  the execution flow must wait for this script to finish              Start-Process -FilePath  powershell  -ArgumentList  -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -EncodedCommand  encodedCommand  -Verb  RunAs  -Wait                   else                         When you use the  Run with PowerShell  feature  the Windows PowerShell console window appears only briefly                The NoExit option makes the window stay visible  so the user can see the script result              Start-Process -FilePath  powershell  -ArgumentList  -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -NoProfile -NoExit -File    PSCommandPath    -Verb  RunAs                     Exit          function Get-UserParameters          string   script ComputerName    Microsoft VisualBasic Interaction   InputBox  Enter a computer name     Testing Network Connection        if   script ComputerName -eq                   throw  The computer name is required               string   inputPort    Microsoft VisualBasic Interaction   InputBox  Enter a TCP port     Testing Network Connection        if   inputPort -ne                   if  -not  UInt16   TryParse  inputPort   ref  script Port                         throw  The value   inputPort  is invalid for a port number                       else               throw  The TCP port is required               MyInvocation Line is empty in the second script execution  when a new powershell session   is started for this script via Start-Process with the -File option   calledFromRunWithPowerShellMenu    MyInvocation Line -eq    -or  MyInvocation Line StartsWith  if  Get-ExecutionPolicy    Assert-AdministrativePrivileges  calledFromRunWithPowerShellMenu    Necessary for InputBox  System Reflection Assembly   Load  Microsoft VisualBasic  Version 10 0 0 0  Culture neutral  PublicKeyToken b03f5f7f11d50a3a     Out-Null  if   calledFromRunWithPowerShellMenu        Get-UserParameters          script code Test-NetConnection -ComputerName  ComputerName -Port  Port

User · Answer

You can easily add some registry entries to get a  Run as administrator  context menu for  ps1 files   New-Item -Path  Registry  HKEY CLASSES ROOT Microsoft PowershellScript 1 Shell runas command    -Force -Name    -Value   c  windows system32 windowspowershell v1 0 powershell exe  -noexit   1      updated to a simpler script from  Shay   Basically at HKCR  Microsoft PowershellScript 1 Shell runas command set the default value to invoke the script using Powershell

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I have found a way to do this     Create a batch file to open your script    echo off START     C  Scripts ScriptName ps1    Then create a shortcut  on your desktop say  right click New -  Shortcut    Then paste this into the location   C  Windows System32 runas exe  savecred  user  DOMAIN   ADMIN USERNAME  C  Scripts BatchFileName bat   When first opening  you will have to enter your password once  This will then save it in the Windows credential manager   After this you should then be able to run as administrator without having to enter a administrator username or password

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On top of Shay Levy s answer  follow the below setup  just once    Start a PowerShell with Administrator rights  Follow Stack Overflow question PowerShell says    execution of scripts is disabled on this system      Put your  ps1 file in any of the PATH folders  for example  Windows System32 folder   After the setup    Press Win   R Invoke powershell Start-Process powershell -Verb runAs  lt ps1 file gt    You can now run everything in just one command line  The above works on Windows nbsp 8 Basic 64-bit

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Benjamin Armstrong posted an excellent article about self-elevating PowerShell scripts  There a few minor issue with his code  a modified version based on fixes suggested in the comment is below   Basically it gets the identity associated with the current process  checks whether it is an administrator  and if it isn t  creates a new PowerShell process with administrator privileges and terminates the old process     Get the ID and security principal of the current user account  myWindowsID    System Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent     myWindowsPrincipal   New-Object System Security Principal WindowsPrincipal  myWindowsID      Get the security principal for the administrator role  adminRole    System Security Principal WindowsBuiltInRole   Administrator     Check to see if we are currently running as an administrator if   myWindowsPrincipal IsInRole  adminRole           We are running as an administrator  so change the title and background colour to indicate this      Host UI RawUI WindowTitle    myInvocation MyCommand Definition     Elevated         Host UI RawUI BackgroundColor    DarkBlue       Clear-Host    else         We are not running as an administrator  so relaunch as administrator        Create a new process object that starts PowerShell      newProcess   New-Object System Diagnostics ProcessStartInfo  PowerShell          Specify the current script path and name as a parameter with added scope and support for scripts with spaces in it s path      newProcess Arguments     amp        script MyInvocation MyCommand Path              Indicate that the process should be elevated      newProcess Verb    runas          Start the new process      System Diagnostics Process   Start  newProcess          Exit from the current  unelevated  process     Exit       Run your code that needs to be elevated here     Write-Host -NoNewLine  Press any key to continue       null    Host UI RawUI ReadKey  NoEcho IncludeKeyDown

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To append the output of the command to a text filename which includes the current date you can do something like this    winupdfile    Windows-Update-      get-date -f MM-dd-yyyy      txt  if     Security Principal WindowsPrincipal  Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent    IsInRole  Security Principal WindowsBuiltInRole   Administrator      Start-Process powershell exe  -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command   Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll   Out-File  env USERPROFILE  winupdfile -Append    -Verb RunAs  exit   else   Start-Process powershell exe  -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command   Get-WUInstall -AcceptAll   Out-File  env USERPROFILE  winupdfile -Append     exit

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The code posted by Jonathan and Shay Levy did not work for me   Please find the working code below   If  -NOT   Security Principal WindowsPrincipal  Security Principal WindowsIdentity   GetCurrent    IsInRole  Security Principal WindowsBuiltInRole   Administrator           No Administrative rights  it will display a popup window asking user for Admin rights    arguments     amp        myinvocation mycommand definition       Start-Process   psHome powershell exe  -Verb runAs -ArgumentList  arguments  break     After user clicked Yes on the popup  your file will be reopened with Admin rights    Put your code here

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Adding my 2 cents  My simple version based on net session which works all the time so far in Windows 7   Windows 10  Why over complicate it   if    net session     path      amp        myinvocation mycommand definition         Start-Process powershell -Verb runAs -ArgumentList  path   exit    just add to the top of the script and it will run as administrator

User · Answer

Using   Requires -RunAsAdministrator  has not been stated  yet  It seems to be there only since PowerShell 4 0   http   technet microsoft com en-us library hh847765 aspx     When this switch parameter is added to your requires statement           it specifies that the Windows PowerShell session in which you are         running the script must be started with elevated user rights           Run as Administrator     To me  this seems like a good way to go about this  but I m not sure of the field experience  yet  PowerShell 3 0 runtimes probably ignore this  or even worse  give an error   When the script is run as a non-administrator  the following error is given      The script  StackOverflow ps1  cannot be run because it contains a     requires  statement for running as Administrator  The current   Windows  PowerShell session is not running as Administrator  Start   Windows PowerShell by  using the Run as Administrator option  and then   try running the  script again     CategoryInfo            PermissionDenied   StackOverflow ps1 String      ParentContainsErrorRecordException   FullyQualifiedErrorId   ScriptRequiresElevation

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A number of the answers here are close  but a little more work than needed   Create a shortcut to your script and configure it to  Run as Administrator     Create the shortcut  Right-click shortcut and open Properties    Edit Target from  lt script-path gt  to powershell  lt script-path gt  Click Advanced    and enable Run as administrator

[powershell] Running a command as Administrator using PowerShell?

Self elevating PowerShell script

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