Charlie Russel's Blog

If you run as a limited user on your own desktop, as you should, it's useful to keep a separate PowerShell window open as the Domain Administrator. I give that window a nice dark red background so I know instantly that I'm in a powerful window and to be appropriately careful. But how can I actually start a window as a different account, and using Run As Administrator? Ah, so glad you asked.

$AdminCred = Get-Credential -UserName "TreyResearch\domainadmin" `
                            -Message "Enter your password for the DomainAdmin account:" 
Start-Process PowerShell.exe -Credential $AdminCred `
                             -ArgumentList "Start-Process PowerShell.exe -Verb RunAs" `
                             -NoNewWindow

Save this as "Start-myAdmin.ps1" or equivalent and it's always available. The nice thing about using Start-Process with the NoNewWindow parameter is that it doesn't leave a spare window open. Try it. It will make it just that much easier to run as a limited user with no administrative rights, even on your own workstation. And really, when you have the power to be a domain admin, you really, really, really shouldn't run any other way.