For many of us, the command prompt is one of most oft-used features in Windows. But I was surprised recently when someone that I consider to be fairly savvy with computers was unaware that you could open a prompt with administrator privileges -- thereby eliminating the frustration caused when running certain prompts only to be told you can’t access that feature, file, or execute that command.
As such, I thought it was probably worth a quick tutorial showing others a feature that’s hiding in plain site that you may have not realized was there.
Here are the two ways to find this not-quite-hidden feature.
- In the Cortana search field, type in Command Prompt, or just CMD.
- Right click the top result, and select Run as Administrator.
- Click Yes on the popup to allow the app to make changes to your device.
If successful, you’ll be able to tell you’re in an “elevated command prompt” -- a Command Prompt with administrator privileges -- by checking the title of the window. In the elevated prompt, it’ll say administrator, while other prompts will not.
Compare this image with the one atop the piece, for example.
