{"id":1006,"date":"2010-02-24T10:28:28","date_gmt":"2010-02-24T04:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.58.113.91\/blog\/?p=1006"},"modified":"2019-06-24T18:38:10","modified_gmt":"2019-06-24T18:38:10","slug":"nircmd-elevate-switch-useful-uses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/nircmd-elevate-switch-useful-uses\/","title":{"rendered":"NirCmd Elevate Switch Added – Some Useful Uses"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve covered the excellent multi-purpose command-line tool NirCmd from Nirsoft earlier<\/a>. This post talks about the new command-line switches added in the current version of NirCmd. Earlier this month, I sent a NirCmd feature request to Nir Sofer, asking to include an “elevate” switch, which should launch an application elevated (Windows Vista, Windows 7 & 2008.) Nir was kind enough to incorporate this feature in the immediate version update (v2.40). Later another update, to fix a bug I reported, v2.41 was released.<\/p>\n

NirCmd v2.40 and higher includes the “elevate” and “elevatecmd” switches to run and execute commands with administrator rights under Windows 7\/Vista\/2008. Here are some useful uses of this all-in-one tool.<\/p>\n

Of course, you’ll see the User Account Control elevation dialog when you use NirCmd with “elevate” or “elevatecmd” switches. There is no way bypassing that without disabling UAC or without relaxing UAC settings.<\/i><\/p>\n

Launch an application elevated (“Run as Administrator”)<\/h2>\n

To launch an application, say Notepad as administrator, use the following shortcut\/command from the Run dialog:<\/p>\n

nircmd elevate notepad.exe<\/pre>\n
or by including the full path:<\/p>\n
nircmd elevate c:\\windows\\system32\\notepad.exe<\/pre>\n
If the path contains spaces, enclose the path within double-quotes. For example:<\/p>\n
nircmd elevate \"C:\\Program Files\\Windows NT\\Accessories\\wordpad.exe\"<\/pre>\n
Launch an application elevated & Passing a parameter<\/h2>\n
IMO, this is probably the most needed thing in Windows 7 & Windows Vista. Windows allows you to run an application elevated by right-clicking the shortcut or executable, and choosing “Run as Administrator”. However, there is no option to pass a parameter to the elevated application.<\/p>\n
Example #1 – Edit the HOSTS file<\/b><\/p>\n
To create a shortcut to edit the HOSTS file (you’ll have to elevate the editor in order to write to HOSTS), you use this command:<\/p>\n
nircmd elevate Notepad \"C:\\Windows\\System32\\Drivers\\Etc\\HOSTS\"<\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
Example #2 – Register or Unregister a DLL<\/b><\/p>\n
Want to register\/unregister a DLL or OCX file quickly, without having to open the Command Prompt (as Administrator) first? Use this command from Start\/Run:<\/p>\n
nircmd elevate regsvr32 c:\\windows\\system32\\jscript.dll<\/pre>\n
Example #3 – Take Ownership of a File or Folder<\/b><\/p>\n
To Take Ownership of a folder, use:<\/p>\n
NirCmd elevate cmd \/k takeown \/f <foldername> \/r \/d y<\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
Followed by ICacls to assign Permissions.<\/p>\n
NirCmd elevate cmd \/k icacls <foldername> \/grant administrators:F \/T<\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n
(Usage of TakeOwn and ICacls for files\/folders are explained in our article How to Take Ownership of a file or folder using command-line in Windows<\/a>.<\/i>)<\/p>\n
Example #4 – Open an Elevated Command Prompt at a Specified Folder<\/b><\/p>\n
When you open an elevated Command Prompt using Start menu or using the Command Prompt shortcut, the default start directory is C:\\Windows\\System32. You use the CD command to change to a different directory. Using NirCmd, you can open an elevated Command Prompt window mentioning the start directory (say D:\\Test, in this example).<\/p>\n
nircmd elevate cmd.exe \/k cd \/d \"D:\\Test\"<\/pre>\n
The “Elevatecmd” Switch<\/h2>\n
As noted earlier, there is also an elevatecmd<\/b> switch added to NirCmd. Note that this is different from the command-line switch elevate.<\/b> The elevatecmd<\/b> switch runs a NirCmd command <\/b>(internal commands of NirCmd) with administrator rights.<\/p>\n
Writing to the Registry using NirCmd<\/b><\/p>\n
Writing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE requires elevation, and you’ll have to use elevatecmd<\/b> if you’re using NirCmd’s “regsetval” switch to write to a registry value.<\/p>\n
NirCmd elevatecmd regsetval sz \"HKLM\\Software\\Test\" \"Value1\" \"test-data\"<\/pre>\n
This writes the data “test-data” under the registry value “Value1” in the above registry key.<\/p>\n
Download NirCmd<\/a> – Windows command line tool from NirSoft. Refer to NirCmd Command Reference Guide<\/a> as well, to make the most of this tool.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We’ve covered the excellent multi-purpose command-line tool NirCmd from Nirsoft earlier. This post talks about the new command-line switches added in the current version of NirCmd. Earlier this month, I sent a NirCmd feature request to Nir Sofer, asking to include an “elevate” switch, which should launch an application elevated (Windows Vista, Windows 7 & … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-utilities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":425,"url":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/run-bat-files-invisibly-without-displaying-command-prompt\/","url_meta":{"origin":1006,"position":0},"title":"How to run .BAT files invisibly, without displaying the Command Prompt window","author":"Ramesh","date":"August 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Batch files (.BAT) and Windows NT Command Script (.CMD) files run in console window when double-clicked. 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Running Snipping Tool in Windows Vista and 7 would start the utility in capture mode (New rectangular snip) automatically, but this has changed in Windows 8 and Windows 10. 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