Run CMD as Administrator in Windows 11 and 10

The fastest way to run CMD as administrator, on Windows 11 and Windows 10 alike: press the Windows key, type cmd, then press Ctrl + Shift + Enter instead of plain Enter. Approve the prompt and you are elevated. No menus, no right-clicking. And if you came here from an older guide telling you to press Windows + X and pick Command Prompt — that menu no longer offers it on Windows 11. It offers Terminal, which is a different thing, and that difference catches people out daily.

"It says I'm an administrator. It still won't let me."

Jake was following a repair guide for a customer's laptop. Step one said open Command Prompt as administrator. He opened Command Prompt, ran the command, and got access is denied.

So he checked the account. It was an administrator account. He checked again. Still an administrator. He ran the command again, more firmly, which has never once worked for anybody.

"It's lying to me," he said. "It says administrator right there on the account."

"It's not lying. You are an administrator. You're just not running as one."

"That's the same thing."

"It really isn't, and this is the single most useful thing you'll learn today. Windows hands every program you open a reduced set of rights, even on an administrator account. Being in the club doesn't mean you're wearing the badge. You get the badge by deliberately elevating — and that's what the three-key shortcut does."

"And nobody says this?"

"Every guide says 'open Command Prompt as administrator' as if it's one action. For most people it's two, and the second one is the bit they skip."

Administrator account, administrator rights — not the same thing

This is worth thirty seconds because it explains most of the confusion around this whole topic.

When you sign in to an administrator account, Windows creates two sets of credentials for you: a full one with administrator rights, and a reduced one with ordinary rights. Everything you open normally gets the reduced one. The full set is only handed out when something explicitly asks to be elevated, which is what the User Account Control prompt is confirming.

So a command failing with access is denied on an obviously-administrator account isn't a contradiction. It's the design working as intended.

The test that actually proves it

Most pages tell you to check whether the title bar says Administrator. That worked reliably in the old console window. In Windows Terminal, where each tab can be a different thing, it is much less dependable.

Run this instead, in whatever prompt you have open:

Scroll to the bottom and find the line ending in Mandatory Level:

Here is the output from the machine this post was written on, in an ordinary prompt on an account that is unquestionably an administrator:

Member of the Administrators group on the first line. Not elevated on the second. Both true at once, and that pair of lines is the whole lesson.

Six ways to open it elevated

All six work on Windows 11 and Windows 10. Learn the first one and you can ignore the rest, but the others earn their place in specific situations.

1. Start menu, three keys — the one to learn

Press Windows key, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

That modifier combination means run this elevated, and it isn't specific to Command Prompt — it works on almost anything you launch from Start. Once it's in your fingers you'll use it for everything, and you'll never right-click a search result again.

Approve the prompt that appears. You're in.

2. The Run box — and why people think it can't elevate

Pressing Enter or clicking OK gives you an ordinary prompt with no rights. That's why so many people are convinced the Run box can't do this — they've only ever pressed Enter.

3. Right-click the search result

Press Windows key, type cmd, then right-click Command Prompt in the results and choose Run as administrator. On Windows 11 the option also sits in the panel on the right of the search results.

Slower than method one, but it's the one to use when you're showing somebody else, because they can see what you're doing.

4. Straight into the folder you need

This one saves genuine time and almost nobody knows it. Open the folder in File Explorer, click into the address bar at the top, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

The prompt opens elevated and already in that folder. No change-directory command, no typing a long path, no quoting a folder name with spaces in it.

5. Task Manager, for when the desktop is misbehaving

Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, then Run new task, type cmd, and tick Create this task with administrative privileges.

Worth knowing because it works when the Start menu has stopped responding — which is exactly the sort of day when you need an elevated prompt.

6. A shortcut that always elevates

If you do this daily, stop doing it manually. Right-click the desktop, choose New → Shortcut, enter cmd.exe, and name it. Then right-click the finished shortcut, choose Properties, click Advanced on the Shortcut tab, and tick Run as administrator.

You'll still confirm the prompt each time — that part can't be skipped and shouldn't be. But the elevation is now automatic.

Ethan's view, for what it's worth: worth doing on your own machine, worth not doing on a shared or family computer. An always-elevating shortcut sitting on a desktop that other people use is a small convenience and a permanent invitation.

The Win+X menu changed, and it breaks every old guide

For years the standard instruction was: press Windows + X, choose Command Prompt (Admin). It was in every tutorial, including ours.

On Windows 11 that option is gone. The menu now offers Terminal and Terminal (Admin). Nothing is broken and you haven't misremembered — Microsoft replaced the entries.

And here's the trap

Choosing Terminal (Admin) gives you an elevated Terminal — and Terminal opens whatever your default profile is, which on most machines is PowerShell.

So you follow the old instruction, get a window with a prompt in it, feel like you've succeeded, and then run a Command Prompt command inside PowerShell. Most of the time it works. Occasionally it doesn't, and when it doesn't the failure looks like the command being wrong rather than the shell being wrong. That's an hour of your life gone to a menu change.

"So the window opened and it was still the wrong thing," Jake said.

"The window was right. What was inside it wasn't. Terminal is a room; Command Prompt and PowerShell are people who can be in it."

How to tell which one you're in

Look at the prompt itself. Command Prompt shows a path ending in >, like C:\Windows\system32>. PowerShell shows the same path with PS in front of it. That PS is the entire tell.

Making Windows 11 behave the way you expect

Two settings. Either one will do; together they restore the old muscle memory completely.

Make Terminal open Command Prompt by default

Open Terminal → Settings → Startup → set Default profile to Command Prompt.

Now every new tab, and every Terminal (Admin) from the Win+X menu, is an elevated Command Prompt. This is the single change that makes the old instructions work again, and it takes about ten seconds.

Or bring back the classic console window entirely

If you'd rather not use Terminal at all: Settings → System → For developers, find the Terminal section, and set the default terminal application to Windows Console Host.

After that, launching cmd opens the old console window you're used to. It's a per-user setting, it's reversible, and none of the commands themselves change.

Ethan's opinion, since neutral summaries are useless: change the Terminal profile, don't revert to the console host. Terminal is genuinely better — tabs, sane copy and paste, resizing that works. The only reason people dislike it is that it opened the wrong shell, and that's the setting you just fixed.

Command Prompt or PowerShell, when the guide doesn't say

Most troubleshooting commands run identically in both. Not all of them, and the ones that don't fail confusingly.

A rough rule that will serve you well:

• Options starting with a slash — sfc /scannow, chkdsk /f, ipconfig /all — are Command Prompt commands. They usually work in PowerShell too, but Command Prompt is where they were designed to live.
• A verb and a noun joined by a hyphen — Get-Service, Restart-Computer — is PowerShell and will not run in Command Prompt at all.
• Anything with quotes, brackets or a dollar sign is almost certainly PowerShell.

If you're new to the second kind, our beginner's guide to PowerShell commands covers the differences properly.

When elevation is refused

Your account isn't an administrator

A standard account cannot elevate on its own — the prompt will ask for an administrator's password rather than a yes or no. Check under Settings → Accounts, where your account type is listed beneath your name. If you're not sure which account you're even signed in as, our post on finding your Windows username settles it in one command.

"This app has been blocked by your system administrator"

On a work or school laptop, that's policy and it's intentional. Your IT team owns it, and working around a restriction on a machine you don't own is not a fix.

On a personal machine it's usually a security product, or a leftover policy from a tweaking utility somebody ran once. Check your antivirus first — some suites block command-line access as a ransomware defense and don't explain themselves.

The prompt never appears at all

If clicking Run as administrator does nothing — no window, no prompt, no error — the User Account Control service or the desktop is unwell rather than the command. Safe Mode is the quickest way to find out whether something loading at startup is responsible, and the Task Manager route above sometimes works when the normal ones don't.

Do not turn off User Account Control

It's the most common advice on forums for this problem and it is the worst.

That prompt appears on a separate secure screen that ordinary programs cannot click for you. That separation is the protection. Turning it off doesn't grant you new powers — it removes the last thing standing between a program you didn't mean to run and complete control of the machine. The two seconds it costs you are the cheapest two seconds in Windows.

One note if this is a Windows 10 machine

Every method above works on Windows 10, and two things are actually easier there: the Windows + X menu still lists Command Prompt, and cmd opens the classic console window with no Terminal involved.

The one thing worth saying, once: Windows 10 reached end of support on 14 October 2025. Without Extended Security Updates it no longer receives security patches. Enrollment runs from Settings → Windows Update, and Microsoft extended the consumer program in 2026 — the current dates are in our post on when Windows 10 and 11 support ends.

It has nothing to do with running commands. It's simply worth one honest sentence on any Windows 10 page in 2026.

What you actually needed it for

Almost nobody opens an elevated prompt for its own sake. You were sent here by a guide. These are the commands that send people, and what each one is actually doing — because running something you understand is the entire difference between fixing a machine and gambling with it.

The sfc and DISM pairing is worth noticing, because most guides give them the wrong way round. sfc repairs damaged files by copying good versions out of a local store — so if that store is itself damaged, sfc reports faults it cannot fix and you conclude Windows is broken beyond help. DISM repairs the store. Run DISM first and sfc becomes useful rather than frustrating. There's a full walkthrough in our post on DISM still reporting corrupt files after a repair.

And one that catches everybody: close the window when you're done. An elevated prompt left open on a shared machine is a small hole that stays open all day.

Pasting commands without breaking them

The question that arrives about thirty seconds after the prompt opens, and one the old guides never answered because for years the answer was genuinely awkward.

It works now. Ctrl + V pastes into Command Prompt on both Windows 11 and Windows 10, and Ctrl + C copies selected text. Right-clicking also pastes, which is the habit older users still have and which still works.

Three things that still go wrong:

• A pasted command runs immediately. If you copied a line with an invisible line break at the end, it executes the moment you paste — before you've had a chance to read it. Paste into Notepad first if the command came from somewhere you don't fully trust. That single habit has saved more machines than any antivirus.
• Smart quotes. Commands copied from a blog or a Word document sometimes carry curly quotation marks instead of straight ones, and the command fails with a syntax error that makes no sense. Retype the quotes by hand.
• The window is in selection mode. If your prompt has frozen and stopped responding to keys, you probably clicked in it and selected something. Press Esc or right-click once, and it carries on. It was never actually stuck.

That last one accounts for a genuinely large share of "my Command Prompt has hung" reports. The window is fine. It's waiting for you to finish selecting.

Questions people actually ask about this

How do I run CMD as administrator in Windows 11?

Press the Windows key, type cmd, then press Ctrl and Shift and Enter together instead of just Enter. That key combination means run this as administrator. Approve the prompt that appears and you have an elevated Command Prompt. It is the fastest route, it needs no menus, and it works identically on Windows 11 and Windows 10.

Why is Command Prompt missing from the Win+X menu?

Because Windows 11 replaced it. That menu now offers Terminal and Terminal with administrator rights, not Command Prompt and PowerShell. Guides telling you to press Windows and X and choose Command Prompt are describing a menu that no longer exists. Terminal is a window that can host Command Prompt, so you can still get there, but it opens your default profile first and that is usually PowerShell.

What is the difference between Terminal and Command Prompt?

Terminal is a window. Command Prompt is a program that runs inside it. Terminal can host Command Prompt, PowerShell or a Linux shell in separate tabs, and it opens whichever one you set as the default profile. So opening Terminal as administrator does not necessarily give you an administrator Command Prompt, it gives you an administrator whatever-your-default-is.

How do I know if my Command Prompt is really running as administrator?

Run whoami with the groups option and look for the line ending Mandatory Level. High Mandatory Level means you are elevated. Medium Mandatory Level means you are not, even if your account is an administrator. This is more reliable than checking the title bar, because a Terminal tab does not always show the word Administrator the way an old console window did.

I am an administrator, so why do commands still fail?

Because being in the Administrators group and running with administrator rights are two different things. Windows gives your programs a limited token by default, even on an administrator account, and only raises it when something is deliberately elevated. That is why a command can fail with access denied on an account that is unmistakably an administrator. Elevating the prompt is what actually grants the rights.

How do I always open Command Prompt as administrator?

Make a desktop shortcut to cmd.exe, right-click it, choose Properties, click Advanced on the Shortcut tab and tick Run as administrator. From then on that shortcut always elevates, though you still confirm the prompt each time. This is worth doing on a machine where you use the command line daily, and worth not doing on a shared computer.

How do I make Terminal open Command Prompt instead of PowerShell?

Open Terminal, go to Settings, then Startup, and change Default profile to Command Prompt. Every new tab and every Terminal launched from the Windows and X menu will then be a Command Prompt. This is the single setting that makes the old muscle memory work again on Windows 11.

Can I get the classic Command Prompt window back instead of Terminal?

Yes. Go to Settings, System, For developers, find the Terminal section and set the default terminal application to Windows Console Host. After that, launching cmd from the Run box opens the classic console window rather than Terminal. The setting is per user and reversible, and nothing about the commands themselves changes either way.

How do I run CMD as administrator from the Run box?

Press Windows key and R together, type cmd, then press Ctrl and Shift and Enter rather than clicking OK. The same modifier combination that elevates from the Start menu works here. Pressing Enter or clicking OK opens an ordinary prompt with no administrator rights, which is why people think the Run box cannot elevate.

What does the User Account Control prompt actually do?

It asks your permission before a program is given administrator rights, and it appears on a separate secure screen that ordinary programs cannot click for you. That separation is the entire point. Turning it off does not make you more capable, it removes the last thing standing between a program you did not mean to run and full control of the machine. Leave it on.

Why does it say this app has been blocked by your administrator?

Something is preventing elevation rather than refusing the command. On a work or school laptop that is deliberate policy and your IT team owns it. On a personal machine it is usually a security product or a leftover policy from a tweaking tool. Check whether your own account is actually an administrator first, because a standard account cannot elevate on its own at all.

Should I use Command Prompt or PowerShell?

Use whichever the instructions you are following were written for. Most commands behave the same in both, but not all of them, and a guide written for Command Prompt can fail in PowerShell in ways that look like the command being wrong. As a rough rule, older troubleshooting commands and anything with a slash for options belong in Command Prompt, while anything with a verb and a noun joined by a hyphen belongs in PowerShell.

Is it safe to run commands as administrator?

It is safe when you know what the command does and where it came from. An elevated prompt will do exactly what it is told with no second chance, including deleting things it should not. The genuine risk is not the prompt, it is pasting a command from a forum or a video without understanding it. Read the command, know what each part means, and never paste something you cannot explain.

Does running as administrator work the same on Windows 10?

Yes, every method here works on both. The differences are cosmetic. Windows 10 still lists Command Prompt in the Windows and X menu, and it opens the classic console window rather than Terminal. The elevation itself, the keyboard shortcuts and the way to verify you are elevated are identical on both versions.

How do I open an elevated prompt in a specific folder?

Open the folder in File Explorer, click into the address bar, type cmd and press Ctrl and Shift and Enter. The prompt opens already in that folder with administrator rights, saving you the change directory command. On Windows 11 the right-click menu offers Open in Terminal for the same idea, though that respects your default profile rather than always giving you Command Prompt.

What fixed Jake's laptop

Three keys. He'd been opening Command Prompt correctly for years and had simply never pressed the combination that elevates it, because nobody had told him there was one — the guides all said "open Command Prompt as administrator" as though it were a single action.

"Years," he said. "Years of right-clicking things."

"Right-clicking works. It's just slower, and it doesn't teach you what's actually happening. Now you know why the account type and the prompt are different things, which is worth more than the shortcut."

"And the whoami one?"

"Use it whenever a command fails with access denied. It answers the question 'is it me or is it the machine' in about a second, and that's usually the question."

Which is the honest summary. Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open it, whoami /groups to prove it, and the knowledge that being an administrator and running as one were never the same thing.

Revision note. Originally published 21 September 2015 for Windows 10, and rewritten on 9 August 2026. The methods in the original still work — the keyboard shortcut has not changed in eleven years, which is rarer than it sounds. What changed is the furniture around them: Windows 11 replaced Command Prompt with Terminal in the Windows + X menu, so the instruction we and everyone else gave for years now points at a menu entry that is not there. That is the main addition here, along with the trap that follows it — Terminal (Admin) gives you an elevated Terminal, which usually means PowerShell rather than Command Prompt. Also added: the two settings that make Windows 11 behave like the machine you remember, and a proper way to check whether you are elevated at all. If you are here because a command kept failing on an account that is definitely an administrator, you were not doing anything wrong — that is genuinely confusing, and it is confusing by design. Do write in through the contact page if your machine does something this page does not cover.