How do I run the Windows 7 Explorer shell with Administrator Privileges by default?

"As far as I know you can't create an account like this, but if you log in as ""Administrator"" (Not merely as an account that is a member of the Administrators group - that's not good enough.) then everything you launch will be launched elevated.

Not something you should do normally, but if you need to then you need to."

"As to the original question if you are running the ENTIRE shell with admin rights you might as well log in with an admin account and be done with it. You're basically destroying the purpose of the account division as far as security is concerned. What I'd recommend is running explorer as a separate administrator account.

Easy solution for launching explorer as admin:

Run a CMD window as your admin account.
Type 'explorer'
Enjoy explorer with admin rights

Note: This does not work in a PowerShell window and I've no clue why. For example.. Launching a PowerShell window as an admin user (and I'm not talking about run as administrator here) and entering 'explorer' or 'invoke-item explorer.exe' will launch the window but with only user rights; however, typing 'CMD' in that same PowerShell window and then just 'explorer' will work.

Other super fun hidden thing note:
Most people don't know this but there's a check box to always run PowerShell windows as administrator so you don't have to always shift-right click and select it (since most of the stuff you do in PowerShell requires admin anyway). To find it:

If pinned (or in the dumbass metro thing probably too) (win 7/8) to taskbar Shift+RightClick the shortcut otherwise just go to properties of shortcut
Click Properties
Click Shortcut Tab
Click Advanced...
Check box 'Run as administrator';ok;ok
Live life happier"

"If you turn UAC off then what is the remaining problem?

You could try the methods in this article by Aaron Margosis, which is for Vista but may well work on Windows 7 (I have not tested this).

@Andrew Some apps don't behave properly with UAC because they are not written properly to work with UAC, and often this is because they were not written properly in the first place. Usual suspects are things which try to write user-level registry settings under HKLM. UAC helps by virtualising this, but if a later part of the code which reads the setting is hard-coded it may bypass virtualisation, not find the setting and not behave as expected (this is also why it is a really bad idea to turn off UAC while you install and configure all your apps and then turn it back on afterwards, as the settings can end up in some strange places)"
"If you turn UAC off then what is the remaining problem?

You could try the methods in this article by Aaron Margosis, which is for Vista but may well work on Windows 7 (I have not tested this).

@Andrew Some apps don't behave properly with UAC because they are not written properly to work with UAC, and often this is because they were not written properly in the first place. Usual suspects are things which try to write user-level registry settings under HKLM. UAC helps by virtualising this, but if a later part of the code which reads the setting is hard-coded it may bypass virtualisation, not find the setting and not behave as expected (this is also why it is a really bad idea to turn off UAC while you install and configure all your apps and then turn it back on afterwards, as the settings can end up in some strange places)"

"There is an option in the Explorer ""folder options"" to run every new explorer window as a seperate task. Whit this enabled you should be able to run a 2nd copy of explorer.exe elevated...

Also possible is running an instance of eg. mspaint with the runas command (runas /user:yourdomain\youradminuser mspaint) and then go to file - open. Voila, you have your elevated explorer..."

"Quick way to get an elevated explorer window:

Hit windows button and type cmd to find it
Right click cmd (or press menu button on keyboard) and choose ""Run as Administrator""
Type explorer <return> in the elevated command window"