How to start command window as administrator on Windows7

Every now and then you run into situations where you need to perform some command line action on your windows machine. And then you see this instruction along with other instructions for that operation. Note: corrective action requires Administrator privileges. This was not a problem till Windows XP because if your account was part of Administrators group you were granted the rights to perform that action. But on Windows7 that is not the case. Even if your account is part Administrators group, you are not running as Administrator. On Windows7 you have to use Run as administrator option to launch certain application.

To start a command prompt we all go to Start menu and use Run option to launch command window or in Windows7 you simply type Cmd in following window in start menu and hot enter.

This will start your command window but it will be running under your context and not as administrator. To get it to run as administrator, instead of hitting Enter, use following key combination and you will have your command window running as Administrator.

To confirm that your command window is running as administrator, you will see Administrator prefixed in the title of the command window as shown below.