How to sudo on powershell on Windows
Note: If you're looking to add general-purpose, prepackaged sudo
-like functionality to PowerShell, consider theEnter-AdminPSSession
(psa
) function from this Gist, discussed in the bottom section of this answer.
If you are running from PowerShell already, then use Start-Process -Verb RunAs
as follows:
Start-Process -Verb RunAs powershell.exe -Args "-executionpolicy bypass -command Set-Location \`"$PWD\`"; .\install.ps1"
Note:
- The script invariably runs in a new window.
- Since the new window's working directory is invariably
$env:windir\System32
, aSet-Location
call that switches to the caller's working directory ($PWD
) is prepended.- Note that in PowerShell (Core) 7+ (
pwsh.exe
) this is no longer necessary, because the caller's current location is inherited.
- Note that in PowerShell (Core) 7+ (
- Executing
Set-Location
necessitates the use of-Command
instead of-File
.- On the plus side, this obviates the need for
-nologo
. - A general caveat is that
-Command
can change the way arguments passed to your script are interpreted (there are none in your case), because they are interpreted the same way they would be if you passed the arguments from within PowerShell, whereas-File
treats them as literals.
- On the plus side, this obviates the need for
If you're calling from outside of PowerShell, typically from cmd.exe
/ a batch file, you need to wrap the above in an outer call to powershell.exe
, which complicates things in terms of quoting, unfortunately:
powershell.exe -command "Start-Process -Verb RunAs powershell.exe -Args '-executionpolicy bypass -command', \"Set-Location `\"$PWD`\"; .\install.ps1\""
Interactively, of course, you can:
Right-click the PowerShell shortcut (in your taskbar or Start Menu, or on your Desktop), select
Run as Administrator
to open a PowerShell window that runs with admin privileges, and run.\install.ps1
from there.Alternatively, from an existing PowerShell window, you can open a run-as-admin window with
Start-Process -Verb RunAs powershell.exe
, as in AdminOfThings' answer.
You can utilize the Start-Process command and then use parameter -Verb runas
to elevate. This works great for starting an elevated process.
I created a sudo function like this and added it to my powershell profile:
function sudo { Start-Process @args -verb runas}
Example: Open notepad as Admin to edit hosts file
sudo notepad C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts
If you want to elevate a Powershell command, you can create a simple function like this:
function Start-ElevatedPS { param([ScriptBlock]$code) Start-Process -FilePath powershell.exe -Verb RunAs -ArgumentList $code}
Then, call the function and pass command wrapped in {}
(script block)
Example: Elevate to create a symbolic link
Start-ElevatedPS { New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Name mySymlink.ps1 -Target C:\myTarget.ps1 }