The requested operation requires elevation in Windows Vista

Posted by andy gaskell on Dec 13th, 2006

So I’ve been using Vista for a few weeks now and for whatever crazy reason I decided I needed to flush dns. I received this message: “The requested operation requires elevation”. Okay, to get around this go to All Programs, Accessories, right click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator. Good to go!

run as administrator

Update:
I’ve been running Vista for quite some time now and finally got fed up with User Account Control (UAC). What UAC really turns into is security by nagging so I disabled it altogether. To disable UAC open the Control Panel/User Accounts then click Turn User Account Control on or off. Uncheck the box. Click OK.

turn off uac in the control panel

turn off user access control

67 Responses

  1. LJay Says:

    Thanks that was brill, been looking everywhere for this its done my head in

  2. dan Says:

    BIG HELP! :) thanks

  3. Robert Says:

    Excellent. Thanks, saved me a minimum of $20.

  4. Sud Says:

    I have been having frustrated by UAC since I bought a new laptop with vista a week ago. And thanks to you, I am now back to the good old easy way of using windoze without UAC.

  5. JVT Says:

    This was great help, its been a bitch using vista. Slowly, with forums like this, we escape its bitchiness.

    Thanks Again!!

  6. barbermr Says:

    I was trying to download my old programs to vista, and it kept giving me that message about “elevation”, so I tried disabling as you said… and I now am able to download all my old stuff back now. Thanks!

  7. Neo Says:

    Thanks for the tip. It solved so many frustrating hours on Vista!

  8. Jeff Says:

    Yup - really useful - I thought I was going mad when I saw this message, it was a new one on me. Many thanks for sharing the info.

  9. Faruk Says:

    THANKS A MILLIONS!!!! IF ANYONE IS HAVING PROBS WITH ANY OTHER S/W, SIMPLY RIGHT-CLICK (USALLY THE .EXE FILE) AND AS ABOVE RUN AS ADMIN.

    CHEERS!!!!

  10. Dana Says:

    Thanks a lot for this. I work for Verizon DSL Tech Support and this has been a great reference to me when I had no idea what that meant.

  11. Jerry Says:

    Many thanks for the info on “the requested operation requires elevation”. I’m new to Windows Vista, and especially appreciate your plain English instructions, as I don’t speak computerese. Saved me a lot of time and aggravation.

  12. Mike Bailey Says:

    Thanks, your post was a big help! Flushdns is a necessity at times…

  13. Athena Says:

    Thanks so much for the clear and easy answer. I’ve just hunted around several different websites and didn’t find a clear answer to this question. There was alot of complicated responses from people who work for Microsuxs, but this by far was the best on the net!

  14. Tom Haws Says:

    Well, I’m a Sys Admin who specifically ordered my new laptop with Vista so I can start testing the new Vista features. We use XP here right now, but Vista is inevitable, so I don’t want to turn off the UAC stuff

    But in order to keep doing my job without it driving me nuts, I’ve created a desktop shortcut to the cmd prompt. When I need to run with elevated privileges, I right-click that icon and select “Run as Administrator” from the menu there.

    Kind of a workaround, but it makes it a lot easier than navigating several menus deep to run it…

  15. roxxie Says:

    Sorry to be dumb but when I go to accessories/click on command prompt and choose run as administrator, another window opens to a C prompt. What do I do then?? Please help

  16. Sandeep Says:

    Hi ,

    thankyou very much for this info. I am an ISP Technician. very new to win Vista. Onetime i had to reset the Winsock, and when we were doing that, we got the error about elevation. I just googled and got your link which was very helpful. Thankyou.

  17. dar Says:

    OMG Thank U for a easier and understandable way to do this.
    I couldn’t install Office 2003 nor unistall MSN Messenger because of the UAC.
    I had to toy w/ my Vista crap for quite a while before I found answer. At least you made it easy, unlike MSN blogs and a few others that make no sense to us normal non computer tech people.I know where to come to for when I have more problems or questions.li

  18. Aaron Johnson Says:

    Thank you so much!! YOU SAVED ME A BUNCH OF MONEY!! Thought I had to buy a program again!!

  19. Chito Says:

    definitely this was a big help for a newbie on vista like me . . . it came first on google search

  20. Chris Says:

    FYI - I found this post on a MSDN forum site… thanks to this guy!

    Try to run the Command Prompt with elevated privileges before running the “route” command. Simply right-click the “Command Prompt” and choose to “Run as Administrator”. That will initiate the UAC prompt for elevated privileges. If you are a member of the local administrator-group you should simply have to select continue, otherwise you need to enter the administrative password.

    Regards

    Johan Lindfors
    Microsoft AB

  21. Escher Beatnik Says:

    Fantastic Article!
    10 out of 10 and right on the money!

  22. Marc’s Musings » Blog Archive » co-incidence or Kwality? Says:

    [...] took exactly 3 days before I went in and disabled UAC (directions here). As a friend at work stated “UAC is great if you don’t know anything about computers [...]

  23. Blog.Lejer.Ro - Bloggers Heaven Says:

    The requested operation requires elevation in Windows Vista…

    THANKS GaSKELL.ORG!!!!
    So I’ve been using Vista for a few weeks now and for whatever crazy reason I decided I needed to flush dns. I received this message: “The requested operation requires elevation”. Okay, to get around this go to All Programs,…

  24. Victor Says:

    AMIN!!! Thanks!!! saved me to install win98 on my lap, lol :))

  25. harv Says:

    tried everything. Still cannot access certain folders. Permission denied. Can’t share some foders. Vista is @#$%^

  26. adam Says:

    Thanks a million!

  27. Juraj Says:

    Great, just what I was looking for!

    Thanks for enlightening us and saving a lot of frustration over UAC.

  28. Sas Says:

    Thanks for the tip! Awesome!

  29. Guy Barwood Says:

    Um, just right click on the command promt icon & select properties.
    Click on Advanced button on the shortcut tab
    Enable “run as administrator”

    now run command prompt and you can flush the dns cache without opening up Vista’s security…

  30. SirSnugglesAlotz Says:

    You don’t know what you’re talking about - UAC RULEZ!!!!

    Also, you smell like month-old cabbage.

  31. Dave Millar Says:

    You are the MAN !!!!

  32. Andrew Says:

    Thanks for that! Was a huge help while trying to update my graphics card drivers!

  33. Ginger Says:

    Thanks so much - fixed it in no time. Saved me 3 hours worth of work

  34. Luis Says:

    Awsome Thanks!

  35. Chelle Says:

    Thanks - I really needed this tip!

  36. Roel Says:

    Nice one, thank you very much!

  37. Tim Says:

    I know that I sound like all the other responders, but, thanks so much. This helped immensely.

  38. eric Says:

    Thanks a bunch! I too had problems flushing the dns and googled “the requested operation requires elevation” and this was the first result! Yay for blogs. Yah for google!

  39. Nikki Says:

    i needed to do that to get my Messenger to work, but everytime i click on Command Prompt, a window with black background pops up
    i dont know how where i’m supposed to click “run”
    please help?

  40. Driva Says:

    Thanks for your information, it’s useful for me

  41. Loo Says:

    Thanks for the help. Now another to deal with another wall.

  42. Keith Says:

    I love you. I was going nuts.

  43. JoeMama Says:

    Just curious if anyone knows WHY we have to do this - my account already is an Administrator account. “Administrator” is defined on the User Accounts - Change Your Account Type screen as “Administrators have complete access to the computer and can make any desired changes…” which seems to contradict the behavior.

  44. Michael Hanney Says:

    Great, thanks! Does anyone know if a shortcut to cmd.exe can be configured to always run as Administrator?

  45. rada119 Says:

    Does anyone know if a shortcut to cmd.exe can be configured to always run as Administrator? Just create a desktop shortcut for cmd.exe (from Accessories>Command Prompt>(right click)Send To>Desktop. Then right-click on the shortuct, select Properties>Shortcut>Advanced. Then tick/check the box Run As Administrator. Job done! Btw, thanks muchly for the tip on req op req elevation!!

  46. rada119 Says:

    Does anyone know if a shortcut to cmd.exe can be configured to always run as Administrator? Yes, first create a desktop shortcut to cmd.exe (from Accessories>Command Prompt (right-click)>Send to>Desktop).

    Right-click on this desktop shortcut then select Properties>Shortcut>Advanced. Click/tick the box next to Run As Administrator, then OK, OK. Now when you click on the shortcut it always opens cmd.exe as Administrator:Command Prompt and you won’t get any “requires elevation” frustration.

  47. zed Says:

    Thanks for that

  48. zed Says:

    Does anyone know if a shortcut to cmd.exe can be configured to always run as Administrator? Yes, right-click on shortcut, then select Properties>Shortcut>Advanced. Then click/tick the box next to Run As Administrator, then OK, OK. Now when you click on the cmd.exe shortcut it will run as Administrator:Command Prompt every time.

  49. Derek Says:

    Thank you very much! I was surprised to get a command prompt; I get nostalgic when I have to recall my DOS knowledge.

  50. Tony Says:

    Thanks! The “error message” was completely mystifying otherwise. Curious that an administrator user does not run as administrator.

  51. Jeff Says:

    Thank you so much for the advice!!! It not only solved all of the issues I have been having with Vista, but also changed opinions all around about Vista!!!! If it wasn’t for this priceless information, we would have been installing XP again! Thanks again…..hats off to you:)

  52. Juan carlos Says:

    thanks bro, save the day

  53. ash Says:

    THANK YOU

  54. spesol Says:

    Thanks, short answer & right into the point!

  55. Dan H Says:

    Wow.. such an easy fix for six months of frustration.

    Aloha ~

  56. Nick Says:

    Thank you, now I can get back to my rosetta stone software.

  57. Ahmed Says:

    Great advice and very clearly explained. Thanks

  58. Todd Says:

    Great help! Thanks.

  59. Peter Says:

    Great Help. Thanks!

  60. Nikhil Says:

    Hey Thanks Andy. It really helped a lot.

  61. Voeop1 Says:

    Thanks!

  62. Emily Says:

    THANK YOU!

  63. awm050501 Says:

    I have UAC disabled & did the run as admin (and my account is admin also)and still getting the elevated error. Any ideas?

  64. andy gaskell Says:

    @awm050501 what application are you trying to run?

  65. Gunawan Says:

    Thanks… It’s helpfull… :)

  66. Northern Venom Says:

    Thanks man. It’s been my problem since I started using Vista. This version of Windows have a lot of problems.

  67. Northern Venom Says:

    Can this also address the bluetooth problem I’m having? I’m using a WIDCOMM Bluetooth device.

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