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

Here's a slight modification of Harry's answer that focuses on elevated status; I'm using this at the start of an install.bat file:

set IS_ELEVATED=0
whoami /groups | findstr /b /c:"Mandatory Label\High Mandatory Level" | findstr /c:"Enabled group" > nul: && set IS_ELEVATED=1
if %IS_ELEVATED%==0 (
    echo You must run the command prompt as administrator to install.
    exit /b 1
)

This definitely worked for me and the principle seems to be sound; from MSFT's Chris Jackson:

When you are running elevated, your token contains an ACE called Mandatory Label\High Mandatory Level.

Answer 2

I read many (most?) of the responses, then developed a bat file that works for me in Win 8.1. Thought I'd share it.

setlocal
set runState=user
whoami /groups | findstr /b /c:"Mandatory Label\High Mandatory Level" > nul && set runState=admin
whoami /groups | findstr /b /c:"Mandatory Label\System Mandatory Level" > nul && set runState=system
echo Running in state: "%runState%"
if not "%runState%"=="user" goto notUser
  echo Do user stuff...
  goto end
:notUser
if not "%runState%"=="admin" goto notAdmin
  echo Do admin stuff...
  goto end
:notAdmin
if not "%runState%"=="system" goto notSystem
  echo Do admin stuff...
  goto end
:notSystem
echo Do common stuff...
:end

Hope someone finds this useful :)

Answer 3

A "not-a-one-liner" version of https://stackoverflow.com/a/38856823/2193477

@echo off
net.exe session 1>NUL 2>NUL || goto :not_admin
echo SUCCESS
goto :eof

:not_admin
echo ERROR: Please run as a local administrator.
exit /b 1

Answer 4

I like Rushyo's suggestion of using AT, but this is another option:

whoami /groups | findstr /b BUILTIN\Administrators | findstr /c:"Enabled group" && goto :isadministrator

This approach would also allow you to distinguish between a non-administrator and a non-elevated administrator if you wanted to. Non-elevated administrators still have BUILTIN\Administrators in the group list but it is not enabled.

However, this will not work on some non-English language systems. Instead, try

whoami /groups | findstr /c:" S-1-5-32-544 " | findstr /c:" Enabled group" && goto :isadministrator

(This should work on Windows 7 but I'm not sure about earlier versions.)

Answer 5

I'm not quite sure why, but none of the other solutions here have worked for me. So I thought it might be worth sharing that this one from Super User did the trick.

Answer 6

Here's a simple method I've used on Windows 7 through Windows 10. Basically, I simply use the "IF EXIST" command to check for the Windows\System32\WDI\LogFiles folder. The WDI folder exists on every install of Windows from at least 7 onward, and it requires admin privileges to access. The WDI folder always has a LogFiles folder inside it. So, running "IF EXIST" on the WDI\LogFiles folder will return true if run as admin, and false if not run as admin. This can be used in a batch file to check privilege level, and branch to whichever commands you desire based on that result.

Here's a brief snippet of example code:

IF EXIST %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\WDI\LOGFILES GOTO GOTADMIN
(Commands for running with normal privileges)

:GOTADMIN
(Commands for running with admin privileges)

Keep in mind that this method assumes the default security permissions have not been modified on the WDI folder (which is unlikely to happen in most situations, but please see caveat #2 below). Even in that case, it's simply a matter of modifying the code to check for a different common file/folder that requires admin access (System32\config\SAM may be a good alternate candidate), or you could even create your own specifically for that purpose.

There are two caveats about this method though:

1. Disabling UAC will likely break it through the simple fact that everything would be run as admin anyway.

2. Attempting to open the WDI folder in Windows Explorer and then clicking "Continue" when prompted will add permanent access rights for that user account, thus breaking my method. If this happens, it can be fixed by removing the user account from the WDI folder security permissions. If for any reason the user MUST be able to access the WDI folder with Windows Explorer, then you'd have to modify the code to check a different folder (as mentioned above, creating your own specifically for this purpose may be a good choice).

So, admittedly my method isn't perfect since it can be broken, but it's a relatively quick method that's easy to implement, is equally compatible with all versions of Windows 7, 8 and 10, and provided I stay mindful of the mentioned caveats has been 100% effective for me.