SS64 Forum

jetelina

Member

Registered: 30 Aug 2013

Posts: 5

cmd.exe with RUNASADMIN causes troubles in simple FOR command

Hi,
can I get please your help?

My environment description:
1. I have set cmd.exe to always elevate, because I always want Admin
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe = RUNASADMIN

2. Because Admin cmd.exe open current dir in C:\Windows\System32 I use Autorun:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor
Autorun = cd /d "C:\Users\User\Desktop"

3. And for the security reasons I have set UAC to highest level

Here is my troubled code:

@echo off
cd /d "%~dp0"
whoami
echo(
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%h IN ('whoami') DO echo %%h
pause

When I execute it via right click "Run as administrator" it returns correct result

PC\user

PC\user
Press any key to continue . . .

But when I execute it just by double click, it returns

PC\user

'whoami' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Press any key to continue . . .

I'm not sure why this happens.
- Can I somehow escape the inner FOR command?
- I have also tried usebackq, but it didn't worked
- When I pipe it via file - simple double click it works

whoami > file.txt
FOR /F "tokens=*" %%h IN (file.txt) DO echo %%h

- I have also found solution like on the beginning of script to remove cmd.exe from elevation and on the end add it back (this is quite fragile)

reg delete "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers" /v C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /f > nul
... code here ...
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers" /v C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /t REG_SZ /d RUNASADMIN > nul

Can you please advise and possibly explain why this happens?

foxidrive

Member

Registered: 04 Apr 2013

Posts: 339

Re: cmd.exe with RUNASADMIN causes troubles in simple FOR command

But when I execute it just by double click, it returns

PC\user

'whoami' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Press any key to continue . . .

That message appears when the command can't be located in the current folder or on the path.
Something in your process has changed the path, it would seem.

Shadow Thief

Member

Registered: 12 Jul 2012

Posts: 205

Re: cmd.exe with RUNASADMIN causes troubles in simple FOR command

Yeah, run

where /r C:\Windows whoami*.*

and make sure that at least one of the paths the command returns is listed when if you

echo %PATH%

I had copies in C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64