Access Remote Files with iexplore.exe

I work for a government office in Quebec. Most of our users log on to their computers with a user account that has limited privileges.Those of us who maintain and troubleshoot problems on these users ’ computers have two accounts:a user account that we use to log on to our own computers and a high-privilege account that we use to log on to another person ’s computer for maintenance or troubleshooting purposes.(The high-privilege account is part of a domain global group that ’s a member of the Local Administrators group.)

I was looking for a way to browse through files on remote computers without the need to use a special connection to these computers.I used to do this in a command-shell window with the Net Use command

 net use \\remotecptr
  /user:domain \highlevelid

where remotecptr is the name of the remote computer,domain is the name of the domain in which the computer resides,and high-levelid is the high-privilege account.

Having to always use a Net Use command was bothersome,so I decided to try using the Runas command.This command lets you run tools or programs under an account that differs from the one you logged on with.I first tried Runas with Windows Explorer (explorer.exe).It didn ’t work.I discovered that Windows Explorer always runs under the user ID of the currently logged on user.I then tried using Runas with Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE —iexplore.exe)by running the command

 runas /user:domain \highlevelid
  “c:\Program Files \Internet
  Explorer \IEXPLORE.EXE ”

It worked.With IE open,I can now browse any computer by simply entering the correct path to the computer (e.g.,\\remotecptr \c$) in the Address field.I no longer need to use a Net Use command every time.This approach works fine with IE 6.0 and most third-party file manager utilities,such as VCOM ’s PowerDesk.However,it doesn ’t work with IE 7.0.
—Serge Bédard,technology
architecture specialist,CSST Québec

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