Command Prompt is one of the simple and most useful tools available on Windows. You can get a lot accomplished with command prompt with just a set of commands. When you want to perform a task that requires administrative privileges, you need to run the Command Prompt in Administrator mode, also called as Elevated Command Prompt. In this article, we shall the different ways to open a admin command prompt or elevated command prompt on Windows.

Open Elevated or Admin Command Prompt

There are more than one ways to open command prompt in elevated mode and we have listed them all down below. You can choose and use the one that fits better with your workflow.

Using the Win X Menu on Windows 10 and Windows 8.1

1. Press Win + X key, or right-click the Start button.
2. Click Command Prompt (Admin)

Recent versions of Windows 10 has replaced the Command Prompt with PowerShell in Win+X menu. To get back the Command Prompt back, check out this article: Get back ‘Open command window here’ context menu.

Using the Run Utility on Windows 10

1. Press Windows + R to open the Run Utility Dialog.
2. Type cmd.exe in the Run dialog.
3. Press Ctrl + Shift and Enter.

This will open the command window in administrator mode in Windows 10.

Using Start Menu Search on Windows 10 or Older

1. Click the Start button, type cmd.exe.
2. When the search results are shown, right-click the Command Prompt entry (top search result) and choose Run as administrator.

Here’s another way: Use the UP/DOWN arrow keys to select the top search result and simply press Ctrl + Shift + Enter on the keyboard. Ctrl + Shift + Enter automatically runs the program as administrator.

Using the Windows Task Manager

Step 1. Right-click on the taskbar and click Task Manager to open it. Alternatively use can use the keyboard shortcuts: Ctrl + Shift and Esc

Step 2. In Task Manager, click on the File menu and then click Run new task.

Step 3. Type cmd.exe in the text box.

Step 4. Enable Create this task with administrative privileges.

Step 5. Click OK.

Using the ‘Run as administrator’ option on Shortcuts

Click on the Start menu > All Programs > Accessories > Right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator. You can even pin the Command Prompt shortcut to the taskbar for easy reach.

Alternatively, you can create a desktop shortcut to cmd.exe. Right-click on the shortcut and choose Run as administrator. To run the shortcut as an administrator by default:

Step 1. Right-click the Command Prompt shortcut you created on the Desktop and select Properties.

Step 2. In the Shortcut tab, click Advanced.

Step 3. Enable the checkbox for Run as administrator.

Step 4. Click OK and OK.

Now, whenever you open Command Prompt window from this shortcut, it will automatically open in elevated/administrator mode.

If you are a frequent user of the Command Prompt, you can Pin it to the Start menu or Taskbar.

Using the right click content menu

To add the Open Command Window Here (Administrator) option to the right-click menu for folders and the Desktop: Copy the following code to Notepad and save it with a .REG extension. Once you save the file, simply double-click the file to apply the registry settings.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellrunas]
@="Open Command Window Here (Administrator)"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshellrunascommand]
@="cmd.exe /s /k pushd "%V""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTdirectoryBackgroundShellrunas]
@="Open Command Window Here (Administrator)"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTdirectoryBackgroundShellrunascommand]
@="cmd.exe /s /k pushd "%V""

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To add the entry to This PC (Computer) context menu, use the following REG file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}shellrunas]
@="Open Command Prompt (Administrator)"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}shellrunascommand]
@="cmd.exe"

Note that the .reg files above replace the run as command in the registry if one was added manually earlier.