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PowerShell As Admin – Easy Mode

Craig Schellenberg

Apr 22 2021

3 min read

Through your IT career you come across things very infrequently that are game changers. The best ones happen to be the most simple ones that will change how you interact with your computer every single day. I came across one of those things a few years back. If in a Windows Explorer window, if you hold down shift while right clicking it will change your options presented to you. Here are the normal options:

Windows Explorer menu

If you hold down Shift while right clicking, one new menu option becomes available – “Open PowerShell window here.”

Windows Explorer menu with PowerShell option

I’ve used this trick over and over again to get a PowerShell prompt in the path of where the window is navigated in to save time from copying the path from the window and changing the directory in PowerShell after pasting it in. I’m saving 5 or 6 seconds maybe, but I’ll take that time back gladly.

However, if I needed to get an elevated PowerShell prompt, I still had to use the old copy and paste method after opening a new elevated PowerShell prompt window. Today I was shown a trick that will change the way I interact with my machine daily. I hope it saves you a few seconds each day too.

Easy mode to open a new elevated PowerShell prompt (that is, running PowerShell as an administrator) is simply to navigate to the location in a window you want an elevated PowerShell prompt in and click the file menu button. Yes, there is a file menu button in this ribbon bar world we are living in. Here it is.

file menu

Once the file menu button was clicked, mouse over the arrow to the right of “Open PowerShell Window.” How about that? Another way to open a normal PowerShell window in this location.

Open PowerShell window

Here it is in its greatness.

Open Windows PowerShell as administrator

The result we have all been waiting for – an elevated PowerShell prompt in the path we have the window open in.

Windows PowerShell easy mode as administrator

Big thanks to Ernesto at Microsoft for showing me this one today. We spent 2 hours troubleshooting an issue with Azure AD Connect Provisioning Agent timing out, discovered it was due to it using Active Directory (Azure AD) Application Proxy which requires an Azure AD Premium P1 license at minimum and a full uninstall and reinstall of the Microsoft Azure AD Connect Provisioning Agent to resolve the problem, which was a great find in its own right. But the take away for me? Easy mode PowerShell as an admin.

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About the Author

Craig Schellenberg

Craig Schellenberg is a Senior Network Consultant at Sikich that works with businesses to improve their IT. Being detail oriented assists in his ability to design and deploy new solutions as well as troubleshoot complex issues. His primary areas of focus are virtualization and storage on premise (whether through VMware vSphere or Microsoft Hyper-V), Microsoft Cloud services such as Azure and Office 365, Microsoft SQL design and administration, backup/DR/Business Continuance, and network route/switch/firewalls. Craig holds many certifications including his MCSE (Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert) in Productivity, Messaging, and Cloud Platform and Infrastructure. Craig also holds multiple certifications of his VCP (VMware Certified Professional) including version 3, 4 (Data Center Virtualization), 5 (Data Center Virtualization), 5 (Desktop), Cloud, and 6 (Data Center Virtualization).