XP RunAs only available for some shortcuts...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Philip Herlihy
  • Start date Start date
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Philip Herlihy

You're supposed to be able to fire off a program as another user (usually an
Administrator) in XP by right-clicking a shortcut with SHIFT down and
picking "RunAs..". On my system (XP Pro) this is only available for some
programs and not others. Corel Painter - yes. Photoshop - no. Any ideas
why this might be so? What I'd really like is to be able to run a Windows
Explorer with an administrative account, but I haven't found a way to do
that yet!
 
You can't use RunAs for explorer because Explorer is already running. You need to ask Adobe about their products (like what type of shortcut is it - there is more than one type). RunAs works on all but Namespace Objects.

You can kill explorer then use runas on it. You should use the runas command (runas /?) as you probably need to use options to make it usefull (eg I'm logged in as an admin but running explorer as Limited using current environment, I can't do much for security reasons).
 
Wierd shit will happen using runas on explorer. Especially after you try to return to normal.
 
Thanks - that makes sense. Do you have any references I could look up on
types of Shortcut?

Runas on the command line has always worked ok for me, but with the
Shift-Right-Click version,

these work:
Word
Excel
AutoRoute
Corel Painter
Adobe Acrobat (!)

... and these don't
Photoshop
My Documents ("Namespace"?)
Notepad (!)
Process Explorer (Sysinternals)
Opera
RealOne player

I think that's pretty weird already...

--
####################
## PH, London
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You can't use RunAs for explorer because Explorer is already running. You
need to ask Adobe about their products (like what type of shortcut is it -
there is more than one type). RunAs works on all but Namespace Objects.

You can kill explorer then use runas on it. You should use the runas command
(runas /?) as you probably need to use options to make it usefull (eg I'm
logged in as an admin but running explorer as Limited using current
environment, I can't do much for security reasons).
 
My Docs won't work. It's a namespace AND it ends up using explorer. However notepad and Process Explorer should work.

There is no reference. For a programmer there is no difference between the lnk files. But there are 5 to my knowledge

..url Internet Shortcuts - a text file with a URL in it

..pif Shortcut for MSDOS Programs

..lnk Normal shortcuts - notepad et al

..lnk Folder Shortcuts (introduced with Win2000/WinME) allows the shortcut to act as a real folder in some places (Start Menu). To get a normal shortcut to a folder you have to create a shortcut to a folder shortcut - you can then delete the folder shortcut. Drag History or TIF (after you empty it - it takes a long time to show a menu with tens of thousands of items)

..lnk Windows Installer shortcuts - Links to windows installer that checks, repaires, and starts the application. This does not support drag and drop, most properties can't be edited. Only installation programs make these types.

..lnk files are treated as whatever by their contents. Only Folder Shortcut don't have a RunAs (probably because it needs explorer to be useful, al la NSEs).
 
Thanks for this useful information - new to me, especially the Installer
shortcuts (I recognise behaviour which had previously seemed inexplicable.

So now I have to figure out why RunAs doesn't work with Notepad on my
system,by the sound of it! I've ruled out problems due to environment
variables in the path - a direct shortcut to Notepad won't cooperate either.

--
####################
## PH, London
####################
My Docs won't work. It's a namespace AND it ends up using explorer. However
notepad and Process Explorer should work.

There is no reference. For a programmer there is no difference between the
lnk files. But there are 5 to my knowledge

..url Internet Shortcuts - a text file with a URL in it

..pif Shortcut for MSDOS Programs

..lnk Normal shortcuts - notepad et al

..lnk Folder Shortcuts (introduced with Win2000/WinME) allows the shortcut
to act as a real folder in some places (Start Menu). To get a normal
shortcut to a folder you have to create a shortcut to a folder shortcut -
you can then delete the folder shortcut. Drag History or TIF (after you
empty it - it takes a long time to show a menu with tens of thousands of
items)

..lnk Windows Installer shortcuts - Links to windows installer that
checks, repaires, and starts the application. This does not support drag and
drop, most properties can't be edited. Only installation programs make these
types.

..lnk files are treated as whatever by their contents. Only Folder Shortcut
don't have a RunAs (probably because it needs explorer to be useful, al la
NSEs).
 
Does notepad itself (c:\windows\notepad or whereever it is) have it on it's right click menu.
 
No it doesn't! Weird...

--
####################
## PH, London
####################
Does notepad itself (c:\windows\notepad or whereever it is) have it on it's
right click menu.
 
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