"Admin Command Prompt Here" Registry Hack

A neat (if not well known) feature of Windows Vista is the built in ability to do a “Command Prompt Here” by selecting a folder, keeping the shift key down and right clicking on the folder. While this is neat, I’ve sometimes found myself needing an Command Prompt with full administrative privileges.

I stumbled upon an excellent tip from Randy Rants on how to get an elevated command prompt here.

Personally, I like my admin command prompts to have a dark red background color so that I remember it is running with elevated privileges (see my previous post if you want a admin command prompt icon using this meme). Anyway, my registry entires look something like:-

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas] @=“Admin Comm&and Prompt here” “NoWorkingDirectory”="" “Extended”=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\runas\command] @=“cmd.exe /t:4f /k “pushd %L && title Command Prompt""

Have fun - usual warnings about registry hacking and backing up etc. According to Randy this should also work for XP users who run with non-Admin privileges.