3 easy ways to run as administrator in Windows 10

Sometimes it is necessary to run an application as administrator. In Windows 10, there are several ways to run as administrator. In this blog post I show you how to find out if you are a local administrator on your PC, and how to open applications with administrator rights.

Am I a local administrator on my Windows 10 PC?

To check if you are a local administrator on your PC, do the following:

1. Click Start , and click Settings .
2. Click Accounts.
3. Look under your name for Administrator.
   1. If so, you have the required Administrator rights.
   2. If there is no Administrator, you have no rights and you will have to ask the (system) administrator of the PC for the rights.

Run a program as administrator from the file context menu

The most straightforward way to run an application as an administrator is as follows:

1. Right-click on an application or shortcut
2. Select Run as Administrator
3. When asked “Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?“, Click Yes
4. The application has now started with elevated rights
   

You can apply this way in Windows Explorer, but also from the start menu or from your taskbar.

Run a program from the Task Manager with administrative privileges

If you know the location of your application or executable, you can also run it from the Task Manager with Administrator rights.

1. Open the Task Manager
2. Click File and click Run New Task
3. Browse to the location of the executable and select it (some applications, such as cmd.exe, notepad.exe and powershell.exe can also be typed directly in the text field).
4. Check “Create this task with administrative permissions.” and click OK

Set an application to always run as an administrator

If you have an application that should always be started as an administrator, you can enable this option in the Properties. You do this as follows:

1. Right click the application or shortcut.
2. Click on Properties.
3. Click on the Compatibility tab.
4. Check “Run this program as an administrator“.
5. Click OK

Final thoughts

There are several ways to run an elevated application. But basically there are only 3 ways that are really different:

• Open via the menu context with right mouse click
• Open via Task Manager with the tick ‘administrative privileges’
• Set in Compatibility to always start with Administrative Rights

Refer to the following links for more information and exploration:

Microsoft help for Run as an administrator
How to Run as administrator