Run “Explorer” as another user – Windows 7

Posted on by

Running explorer.exe as a user different from the one that is already logged in using “runas” command is disabled in Windows 7. But there is a workaround for this:

  1. Start -> Run -> regedit
  2. Navigate to the registry key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AppID{CDCBCFCA-3CDC-436f-A4E2-0E02075250C2}
  3. Right click on the registry key and click Permissions…
  4. Give Full Control permissions to the user logged in.
  5. Start -> Run -> dcomcnfg.exe -> Expand DCOM Config
  6. Right click and select properties of “Elevated-Unelevated Explorer Factory”, click the Identity tab and select “The launching user”

After doing this explorer.exe will launch as the user specified in the RunAs.exe command!

NOTE: If you get permission denied when setting permissions on the registry it’s because of the “TrustedInstaller”. So you need to go to Advanced and take ownership away from “TrustedInstaller”. I normally give the ownership to the “Administrators” group.