Possible new facility: runas for aliases

[oblivion]

I occasionally use a Microsoft gadget called Active Directory Users and Computers. (Catchy, I know. I'd call it ADUC but Cody might get nasty.)

Anyway, I set up a FARR alias (AD) for it but I need to run it as a different user to get the appropriate level of access. I can right-click and get run as Admin but the trick I use on the desktop (shift-right-click adds "run as different user" to the context menu) doesn't work in FARR.

So a couple of suggestions: one, add shift-right-click support to programs in the FARR list. Two, allow a tweak for an alias that will always ask for userid and password for that particular thing.

I appreciate that usually, anything that can be described in a couple of sentences is probably horrifically complicated to implement ...

[Ath]

Can you use the cmd internal command runas? (Not a FARR user... )

Open a cmd prompt and enter runas/? to get the default help on available command-line arguments, or visit https://ss64.com/nt/runas.html for that same helptext and some examples.

[oblivion]

Can you use the cmd internal command runas? (Not a FARR user... )

-Ath (November 18, 2019, 01:50 PM)

I could, if I didn't worry about exposing my password. Runas on the command line can be given username and password, or just username and have it prompt for password, but I can't script all that if I want to avoid storing the password as plain text.

The nice thing about shift-right-click is that you get a proper Windows uid/password dialog.

[Ath]

Where is FARR more secure in asking for a password opposed to entering it in a Windows CMD prompt (without any character echo'ed)?    If a keyboard hook would be installed on your system it could see the password in both cases. And I don't know if it's even possible for an application to induce the standard Windows popup-prompt for a password.

[oblivion]

Where is FARR more secure in asking for a password opposed to entering it in a Windows CMD prompt (without any character echo'ed)?

-Ath (November 20, 2019, 01:19 AM)

That's not really what I was asking for - I just want FARR to be able to trigger the existing Windows functionality, either by allowing me to shift right click from the results window, or by letting me set an option for an alias to always trigger the run as another user function. Having FARR ask for the uid and password is asking too much, I recognise.

It didn't occur to me that I might be able to trigger it in a CMD window without storing anything - I'll experiment.

[Nod5]

the trick I use on the desktop (shift-right-click adds "run as different user" to the context menu) doesn't work in FARR.

-oblivion (November 18, 2019, 09:27 AM)

Indeed, I didn't know that. The FARR context menu does have the item "Shell context menu" which shows the same context menu you see for the file in Explorer I think, but holding Shift in FARR doesn't have the effect on that menu that it has in Explorer.

A possible second best: you can make a small AutoHotkey script that uses RunAs to run from another user account based on credentials you type in a small GUI popup each time. No credentials permanently stored in plaintext then. But I guess that GUI isn't as secure against other running applications as the the login window from Windows. Depends on how much you trust the computer and programs running on it I suppose.

Another alternative could be a FARR alias that starts a powershell script that asks for user account password and then start the application. Search for "credentials" in this PowerShell manual page.