How to detect if CMD is running as Administrator/h

Question

From inside a batch file, I would like to test whether I'm running with Administrator/elevated privileges.

The username doesn't change when "Run as Administrator" is selected, so that doesn't work.

If there were a universally available command, which has no effect, but requires administrative privileges, then I could run that and check for an error code in order to test for privileges. So far, I haven't found such a command. The commands I have found seem to return a single, non-specific error code, which could indicate anything, and they're prone to failure for a variety of reasons.

I only care about Windows 7, though support of earlier operating systems would be nice.

Answer 1

ADDENDUM: For Windows 8 this will not work; see this excellent answer instead.

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Found this solution here: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/clevertricks.php

AT > NUL
IF %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 (
    ECHO you are Administrator
) ELSE (
    ECHO you are NOT Administrator. Exiting...
    PING 127.0.0.1 > NUL 2>&1
    EXIT /B 1
)

Assuming that doesn't work and since we're talking Win7 you could use the following in Powershell if that's suitable:

$principal = new-object System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal([System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity]::GetCurrent())
$principal .IsInRole([System.Security.Principal.WindowsBuiltInRole]::Administrator)

If not (and probably not, since you explicitly proposed batch files) then you could write the above in .NET and return an exit code from an exe based on the result for your batch file to use.

Answer 2

Pretty much what others have put before, but as a one liner that can be put at the beginning of a batch command. (Well, usually after @echo off.)

net.exe session 1>NUL 2>NUL || (Echo This script requires elevated rights. & Exit /b 1)

Answer 3

the solution:

at >nul
if %ErrorLevel% equ 0 ( echo Administrator ) else ( echo NOT Administrator )

does not work under Windows 10

for all versions of Windows can be do so:

openfiles >nul 2>&1
if %ErrorLevel% equ 0 ( echo Administrator ) else ( echo NOT Administrator )

Answer 4

I know I'm really late to this party, but here's my one liner to determine admin-hood.

It doesn't rely on error level, just on systeminfo:

for /f "tokens=1-6" %%a in ('"net user "%username%" | find /i "Local Group Memberships""') do (set admin=yes & if not "%%d" == "*Administrators" (set admin=no) & echo %admin%)

It returns either yes or no, depending on the user's admin status...

It also sets the value of the variable "admin" to equal yes or no accordingly.

Answer 5

This trick only requires one command: type net session into the command prompt.

If you aren't an admin, you get an access is denied message.

From MS Technet:

Used without parameters, net session displays information about all sessions with the local computer.

Answer 6

The easiest way to do this on Vista, Win 7 and above is enumerating token groups and looking for the current integrity level (or the administrators sid, if only group memberhip is important):

Check if we are running elevated:

whoami /groups | find "S-1-16-12288" && Echo I am running elevated, so I must be an admin anyway ;-)

Check if we belong to local administrators:

whoami /groups | find "S-1-5-32-544" && Echo I am a local admin

Check if we belong to domain admins:

whoami /groups | find "-512 " && Echo I am a domain admin

The following article lists the integrity level SIDs windows uses: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb625963.aspx