Most of the programs can work without problems on the PC running with the same permissions as our user account. However, if the program is somewhat advanced, or it is an installer, we may need some additional permissions to work. This is known as Administrator permissions , an advanced degree of privilege required for this program to run properly.
Opening a program as Administrator in Windows is not a complicated task, quite the opposite. The only thing that we will need for this to work is either to be using an Administrator account in Windows, or to know the password of another account with this level of privileges.
Advantages and disadvantages
Like everything, opening a program or a file with Administrator permissions has its pros and cons. The main advantage of this configuration is that the program or file that we open will have global permissions on the system. This will allow you, for example, to make modifications to protected Windows directories and have more control, and priority, over the system hardware.
However, there are also many drawbacks. Especially when it comes to security . Separating permissions is a basic Windows protection measure. A malicious program, without Administrator permissions, is practically useless. However, if we give you these permissions, you can have full control over the PC.
For example, an antivirus must always be run with these permissions in order to scan the system and take the necessary actions. But other programs, or a game, no. We must never give this level of privileges to anything downloaded from the Internet that is not fully trusted, since we will be endangering the security of our Windows.
Open as Administrator in Windows 7
To open a program as Administrator in Windows 7, all we have to do is place the mouse over it, and by clicking with the right mouse button, choose the option ” Run as Administrator “.
If our account has Administrator permissions, we can open the program directly with this level of privileges. If not, we will have to enter the credentials of an account that has these permissions in order to do so.
If we hold down the Control + Shift keys when we click the right mouse button we can see another option called “Run as another user”. This will allow us to open the program directly with the permissions of another user account on the computer.
Run as Administrator in Windows 10
We can carry out this configuration in several different ways if we use the latest version of Microsoft‘s operating system.
With the context menu
As in Windows 7, any Windows 10 file can be opened by right-clicking on it. By doing so, we will be able to see the corresponding button that will allow us to execute the program in question with this level of privileges.
In addition, we will also be able to choose if we want to open the program with another user instead of our own. We can also do this in a similar way to how it is done in Windows 7, with the difference that, instead of having to hold down the Control and Shift keys, it only works with Shift.
From the search engine
One of the features of Windows 10 is its search engine. From it we can find all kinds of files and programs that we have installed on the PC in seconds. If we use this search engine to run programs , opening them with Administrator permissions is very simple.
We can do this in two different ways. The first one is from the program file, since we will have an option specially created for this purpose. And the second one is by right-clicking on the program in question and choosing this option.
From the Start menu
We can also do this on any program that is anchored to the start menu. To do this, what we must do is locate the program in the list of software installed on the computer and right-click on it. We can see an option that will allow us to run the program in question with this level of privileges.
The effect will be the same as with any of the previous methods. Of course, we must bear in mind that not all programs can run with these permissions. For example, Microsoft’s own programs that come installed with Windows 10 do not need it, therefore, we will not have this option. Nor will we be able to open the programs that we have downloaded from the Microsoft Store as admin , since the UWP design is not intended to go beyond its own configuration.
Always open as Administrator
The above methods are very useful when we only want a program to open with these permissions once. But if we always want to do it, going through the process manually all the time is quite tedious. Fortunately, Microsoft allows us to change this mode of operation directly from the file’s properties so that we can tell the program to always open as administrator .
To do this, we must take the program’s executable, or the shortcut, and right-click on it to open the properties window. Now, the rest of the process we can do it in two different ways.
If what we want is that this configuration applies only to the direct access, we can select the direct access tab, click on the ” Advanced options ” button, and check the box that we indicate in the window that will appear.
But if we want this change to be applied directly to the program’s executable, so that it always opens with these permissions, we execute it from wherever we do it, then we must go to the compatibility tab, to mark the option to run as administrator from it.
After applying the changes, when we open the program it will do so with the maximum level of privileges. Of course, we remind you that we should only give this level of privileges to programs that are fully trusted. Otherwise we will be putting the security of our PC at risk.