Windows’ built-in “Run-As” command allows you to launch a program as a different user account than the one currently active, However, runas.exe cannot be fully automated as it requires that the user typein the password for the alternate account. RunAsTool is portable freeware which allows standard users to run a specific program with administrator privileges without the need to enter the administrator password. This allows you to provide standard (non-admin) users with access to programs that require admin rights.
Some programs may not run correctly under a restricted account due to missing administrator rights. Therefore, many users are given administrator accounts, which makes the system more vulnerable to malware, viruses and other security risks. With RunAsTool, you can fix this. The login information for the application like username and password are read from an encrypted file – You don’t have to worry about your Admin Password.
RunAsTool v1.6 – What’s New – (Wednesday, July 1, 2026)
1. [ADDED] – Password security has been enhanced.
2. [ADDED] – Domain support.
3. [ADDED] – The method was modified to work in portable mode.
4. [ADDED] – verifying the hash before running.
5. [ADDED] – prompting for a password before running.
6. [ADDED] – Option to inherit variables.
7. [REMOVED] – Support for Import Cmd parameters.
8. [REMOVED] – Support for XP.
9. [ADDED] – A large portion of the program has been rewritten.
How to use
With RunAsTool there is no need to use a CMD prompt or any parameter in order to allow a standard user to run a program with admin rights. Just download, extract, and launch RunAsTool. Note: Problems may occur if RunAsTool is moved to the desktop and run from there. Both the administrator and users who will use the program must have access to the relevant folder. Therefore, running the program from a location to which you have access permissions will help prevent certain issues.
1) Administrators In standard user account:
Launch RunAsTool and choose an admin account (if there are more than one) and type in the associated admin password.
RunAsTool has two user interfaces (UI). One for administrator accounts and one for standard users. (Standard users aren’t able to use the admin UI). In the admin UI, you can easily drag and drop any program(s) into the UI in order to give it admin privileges. Standard users can also create application shortcuts.
To change the places of the icons in the interface, simply drag them on each other. RunAsTool has several useful options. For example, “Run with default rights”, “Run as limited user”, as well as the ability to show, hide, minimize, or maximize the launched window(s). As a security check, administrators can use “check the file size before run” feature. If a restricted user attempts to rename another program in order to run it with admin rights (a.k.a. “spoofing”), this option will prevent the user from doing so.
2) Administrators In Administrator user account:
Admins can easily add program(s), then right click it/them and create a shortcut on the standard user’s desktop.
The Options menu contains many useful features, such as restricting Limited Mode, creating application shortcuts on the desktop, and adding a DLL file to the Allowed Module list.
Administrators can also easily import and export program lists. Just click File–>Menu and choose Import or Export. This is useful to create a list once and use it again later.
Standard users have two options to use an allowed program(s) with admin privileges.
1) In the RunAsTool restricted UI, double-click any program to run it with admin rights.
2) If the administrator has allowed it, a standard user may click any program and create their own shortcuts, so that there is no need to launch RunAsTool every time. They can also use any shortcut which the admin has already created for them. RunAsTool also supports domains. You can configure your settings in your Active Directory system and access the tool via a shared folder on other Windows systems connected to the same domain.
Supported operating systems: Windows 11 , Windows 10 , Windows 8.1 ,Windows 8 , Windows 7 , Windows Vista
Supported languages: English, Turkish, German, French, Polish, Korean
File: RunAsTool_x64.exe │ Virustotal
MD5: 32f05522749f93b52436d2947912a911
SHA1: 7930d2ee7eeec17ec79aa5c579979975c1fe50f4
File: RunAsTool.exe │ Virustotal
MD5: 25a1099d786dc05d15ad221816828354
SHA1: d22394a7f3c4842ee418943a551783dadcd1b32d
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Can you provide more information about where the password is stored, such as where the encrypted file is located and what encryption algorithm is used? Thank you.
We followed your steps but RunAstool works flawless. We have noted it down and will check it from time to time. Thanks for the feedback.
i appreciate your support,ill describe exactly what iam doing. Iam using built-in Administrator account,so i log in into this account,run your tool,select this Administrator account and enter password. Then i drop the application i intend to run and create shortcut. I log into another account that doesnt have admin rights,run your tool or shortcut it created and everything is working fine. Problem is when i want to run another application requiring admin rights(not thru your tool)..for example regedit.., then UAC prompt pops-up,i enter Admin credentials..and after that your tool doesnt work until i log off(no reboot required). When Secondary logon service is stopped it throws error “Secondary logon service is stopped!”. When i start the service,it doesnt display any erros,but doesnt work anyway. In event viewer there are normal security success logon events,same as if it was working
We have tested it many times but no such error , could you please give us more details ? we want to get the same error
Thanks for reply,im working on deploying this to around 40-50 PCs, all Win7 with pretty much the same configuration. So far i tested on 3 PCs with same results. SecLogon is set to manual start and stopped,but even if i start it manualy..still the same error.Its not that bad of an error,since i only need UAC login for debugging my deployment script,for real use your app replaces the UAC prompt..
RunAsTool v1.4 need SecLogon service to work properly , this can be the source of the Error. Could you please try it on another Computer. We will test it again.
Hi, thanks for this App! However i think i found a bug. App is working fine,until i login to Admin account via UAC prompt..then it just throws “Secondary logon service not started!”. Only solution ive found is to reboot pc..
Does your application check the “Run this program as an administrator” checkbox, which permanently makes it run as admin? If I could do that on dozens of programs all at once (like all the EXEs in a folder), instead of one at a time, that would be wonderful.
Thank you !
Please, can you add the feature to allow domain administrator to be the admin ?
This would be an incredible tool for us if it could run as another domain user, rather than a local admin of the PC. We have a need to provide users the ability to run a small selection of programs as domain\username during a migration from one domain to another, and I was looking for a somewhat prettier way to present it than a “Runas” batch file for each app, or coaching the user on left shift + right-click + run as different user.
Sorry there is a misspelling , RunAstool must install to work properly
I’m having trouble with the ‘portability’ of RunAsTool. The website says: “You can also copy RunAsTool to a USB flash drive…, and run it on any computer. ” …I can’t do that.
I have multiple cloned computers. I need to be able to plug in the flash drive and run a particular .bat file as an admin.
I have RunAsTool saved to a flash drive. On computer 1, I loaded RunAsTool, added my .bat file, saved the shortcut to the flash drive and everything worked perfectly. When I go to the next computer, an exact clone, it fails. The shortcut it created on my flash drive points to c:\program files\runastool\runastool.exe, instead of the runastool.exe on the flash drive. If I change the shortcut’s target to point to runastool on the flash drive, then runastool runs, but it gives the error ‘file not found’. Suggestions?
It’s strange , maybe another security Application cause this message
This tool has resolved my recent frustration with Windows 10! Now my children can run applications that used to work fine without running them as administrator. For some reason, they now get a bar saying “This app has been blocked by your system administrator.
Contact your system administrator for more info.” when the app was never actually blocked in the first place.
Anyway, this solution works well. Thank you!
Thanks for your feedback, we have noted it down and will investigate.
There maybe has a small bug when I create the shortcut. My OS is Windows 10 x64. I copy the files of this tool at the path “E:\Tools\SystemTools\RunAsTool”. When I create shortcut by using both RunAsTool.exe and RunAsTool_x64.exe, I found the shortcut content path is “C:\Program Files\RunAsTool\RunAsTool.exe” xxx.
The shortcut cannot be executed correctly,
Anyway, this is a very very good tool for me. Thanks a lot.
Brilliant App, can you please add the feature to allow domain administrator to be the admin.