How-To Run commands in SYSTEM context

Just a quick post on how to run commands, installation, programs in system context in windows vista and above.

For XP we use a tool called CmdAsSys.exe which we simply ran with admin rights.

But for windows 7 this tool would not run interactively in the currently logged in user session and instead the operating system would throw a prompt to change session which just isn't a convenient way to work.

Therefore, for Windows 7 we are now using psexec from sysinternals. This utility can be downloaded here.

From an elevated command prompt run:
PsExec -s -i cmd.exe

Here is a screenshot showing the command, task manager with the cmd.exe process running as SYSTEM as well as notepad started as SYSTEM.

That's it for now, hope you will find this entry useful and if you have other ways of doing this, please use the comment section to share them !!