Run a program as a different user using Advanced Run

Posted on May 31, 2008 at 5:25 am

Have you ever needed to run a program on your computer as a different user than the currently logged on user? Maybe you need to run an application as an Administrator to perform some special tasks or there are some special settings that a program uses under a different user account. Whatever the reason may be, the normal way is to log off your user name and log back on as the other user.

You can also right click on the program and choose Run As and then type in the credentials of the desired user account.

This is fine for most people if you only need to do this every once in a while. However, if you’re a computer administrator or someone who likes to logon to Windows under a normal user account for security purposes, then there is a better and more efficient way to switch between users.

Advanced Run is a free tool that allows you to run any program, run any command line command, open, edit or print documents with any user account without switching between users.

Advanced Run is basically a replacement of the Windows built in Run feature that you can use to run Windows and DOS commands like “regedit”, “msconfig”, etc. Advanced Run just gives it the extra feature of being able to pick any user from a drop down list. Just type in the password and you’re done.

You can access the Advanced Run dialog in a number of ways:

You can press the normal key combo of <Win>+<R> or pick Run Start menu item
You can open the Task manager and click File -> New Task menu item
You can right-click over any file and pick Run As menu item

The program works with Windows XP and Windows Vista, but does not work on a 64-bit system.

Overall, it’s a good program for system administrators or anyone who has to run programs under different user accounts on their Windows PC. Enjoy!

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» Filed Under Free Software Downloads

Comments

6 Responses to “Run a program as a different user using Advanced Run”

Colin said on : June 1st, 2008 at 1:02 am

sometimes i try work it in another way .
click the start menu, then right-click the Internet Explorer in the all program while pressing the SHIFT.
then type your admin account after your clicking the run-as.
and then u can do what u want by typing in the address box. e.g. d:\
and you can also run program in this windows explorer by using the admin account you have just typed.

sridhar putta said on : June 1st, 2008 at 1:03 am

wonderful tip

Alexander said on : July 1st, 2008 at 4:48 am

A question 2 Colin. So what do you do if you want to run something with command line arguments? Something like “mmc lusrmgr.msc” to manage user account when you are loggin on as limited user.

Marcelo said on : April 9th, 2009 at 7:12 am

Colin, you the Man!

Samik said on : November 17th, 2009 at 9:05 am

Thanks Colin!

Jeff said on : November 19th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Colin, can you run in the same way IE as a limited user, if you are logged as administrator? This can be usefull if you want to browse potentially unsafe sites from limited user and after browsing just remove user account with all viruses that may live there. I think you cannot. But Advanced Run allows you to do so. Moreover, you can also manage privileges using Advanced Run.