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I have a Win7 machine, on which I am an administrator. There is a separate regular user account on the machine.

I'm wondering if it's possible to login interactively (i.e. with a desktop session) as that other user, without knowing or changing his password. I know runas can be used to run console programs and the like as the other user, but it would be nice to get a proper desktop session.

In this scenario, I have to do tech support for the other user frequently, and it is a hassle to ask him to change the password (as he won't give me his real password). So, being able to log in "directly" would be a big help.

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  • is it a local machine or a remote one?
    – Michael
    Commented Oct 15, 2012 at 5:52
  • It's a local machine, but it does have a network connection.
    – nneonneo
    Commented Oct 15, 2012 at 5:53
  • well, if you use a remote control software such as TeamViewer, you could control the desktop as the user when this user is logged in.
    – Michael
    Commented Oct 15, 2012 at 5:56

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Sorry, no, that's not possible. You can elevate without a password, but you can't login as another user without knowing his password.

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  • so it's not possible at all to attach a desktop session as another user, or anything like that?
    – nneonneo
    Commented Oct 15, 2012 at 4:34
  • It's certainly not what Microsoft intended and, so far as I know, there's no way to defeat their intent.
    – Nicole Hamilton
    Commented Oct 15, 2012 at 4:52
  • I just realized you said "attach" this time but in your original question, you said "login". Those are different things. You will need the password to login but as agentmike mentions above, if you mean you'd be happy to take control of the user's desktop once he's already logged in, that's possible.
    – Nicole Hamilton
    Commented Oct 15, 2012 at 6:02

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