How can I run a command with administrator rights with Visual Studio code terminal?

Question

The new version 1.2.0 includes a terminal, but when I try to install any pack with Node.js, I get the "npm ERR! code EPERM" that I usually solve by right-clicking and running it as administrator. How can I do that in the Visual Studio Code terminal? Is there something like sudo for Linux?

Answer 1

Option 1 - Easier & Persistent

Running Visual Studio Code as Administrator should do the trick.

If you're on Windows you can:

1. Right click the shortcut or application (EXE file)
2. Go to Properties
3. Compatibility tab
4. Check "Run this program as an administrator"

There is a caveat to it though

Make sure you have all other instances of Visual Studio Code closed and then try to run as Administrator. The Electron framework likes to stall processes when closing them, so it's best to check your Task Manager and kill the remaining processes.

Related changes in the codebase

• https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/293070-visual-studio-code/suggestions/8915236-visual-code-w-terminal-integrated-and-super-admin
• Running a command with administrator rights? #7407

Option 2 - More like Sudo

If for some weird reason this is not running your commands as an Administrator, you can try the runas command. Microsoft: runas command

Examples

• runas /user:Administrator myCommand
• runas "/user:First Last" "my command"

Notes

• Just don't forget to put double quotes around anything that has a space in it.
• Also it's quite possible that you have never set the password on the Administrator account, as it will ask you for the password when trying to run the command. You can always use an account without the username of Administrator if it has administrator access rights/permissions.

Answer 2

Step 1: Restart Visual Studio Code as an administrator

(click the Windows key, search for "Visual Studio Code", right click, and you'll see the administrator option)

Step 2: In your Visual Studio Code PowerShell terminal run Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Answer 3

In my case even while running as admin I had to set the execution policy.

In the terminal type:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope Process

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_execution_policies?view=powershell-7.2

Answer 4

Running as administrator didn't help me (I also got errors with syscall: rename).

It turns out this error can also occur if files are locked by Windows.

This can occur if:

• You are actually running the project
• You have files open in both Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code.

Running as administrator doesn't get around Windows file locking.

I created a new project in Visual Studio 2017 and then switched to Visual Studio Code to try to add more packages. After stopping the project from running and closing Visual Studio 2017 it was able to complete without error.

Disclaimer: I'm not exactly sure if this means running as administrator isn't necessary, but try to avoid it if possible to avoid the possibility of some rogue package doing stuff it isn't meant to.

Answer 5

There are two ways you can solve this problem,

For temporary
You can follow these steps for it,

1. Search Vscode after in the windows.
2. Then right-click and run the VScode as an administrator.

But you can do this every time when you open the VScode.So I supposed it is not the best way to solve this problem.

Best way
You can follow these steps for it,

1. Search Vscode after in the windows.
2. Then right-click and click the open file location.
3. Then you can click the VScode icon and go to the properties.
4. Next you want to go to the compatibility tab.
5. At the bottom of the tab, there are selection boxes, in there you can see run this program as an administrator selection box you want to tick it.
6. Then you can apply those changes and save it.

You can refer to below page to do more things related to this run as administrator stuffs
https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11841-run-administrator.html

Answer 6

Here's what I get.

I'm using Visual Studio Code and its Terminal to execute the 'npm' commands.

Visual Studio Code (not as administrator)
PS g:\labs\myproject> npm install bootstrap@3

Results in scandir and/or permission errors.

Visual Studio Code (as Administrator)
Run this command after I've run something like 'ng serve'

PS g:\labs\myproject> npm install bootstrap@3

Results in scandir and/or permission errors.

Visual Studio Code (as Administrator - closing and opening the IDE)
If I have already executed other commands that would impact node modules I decided to try closing Visual Studio Code first, opening it up as Administrator then running the command:

PS g:\labs\myproject> npm install bootstrap@3

Result I get then is: + [email protected]
added 115 packages and updated 1 package in 24.685s

This is not a permanent solution since I don't want to continue closing down VS Code every time I want to execute an npm command, but it did resolve the issue to a point.

Answer 7

From MS: "With the introduction of process sandboxing (discussed in this blog post) running as administrator is currently unsupported when AppLocker is configured due to a limitation of the runtime sandbox"

The work around is to disable sandboxing but starting VS Code with the following arguments:

--no-sandbox --disable-gpu-sandbox 

1. Create a shortcut.
2. Edit shortcut properties
3. Set the Target field to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft VS Code\Code.exe" --no-sandbox --disable-gpu-sandbox
4. Right click on shortcut and Run as Admin.

Answer 8

The only thing that solved the issue for me:

Right-click on the Visual Studio Code EXE file → Compatibility → Check "Run this program as administrator"

Answer 9

Creating a shortcut and setting Run As Administrator on the Compatibility tab doesn't just set the Visual Studio Code to run as administrator when opened from that shortcut. It sets the underlying executable to run as administrator no matter how it is opened, which means you lose the ability to run Visual Studio Code in normal non-elevated mode.

As a solution that is a non-starter for me.

Rather than enable administrator mode in the Compatibility tab I find it easier to just open the normal Visual Studio Code shortcut using Ctrl + Shift + Enter instead of enter, that also runs it elevated, but I can still run Visual Studio Code normally by just opening it using Enter.

Answer 10

There is a much easier way to run commands with Administrator rights from the command line to get the Linux sudo experience in Windows, with none of the issues mentioned in the other answers. Output of commands run with sudo appears below the command in the same Terminal window as the command as expected, no need to quote usernames, set passwords, etc.: sudo for Windows.

You can find the sudo script in the psutils script collection in the Github repository at: https://github.com/lukesampson/psutils

You can install sudo easily using Scoop. At a command prompt, run:

scoop install sudo

To run a command with Administrator rights, simply run it with sudo:

sudo .\myscript.ps1

You will be shown a UAC dialog before the command is run.

Answer 11

Win + R, or from another cmd, type:

    powershell -Command "Start-Process code -Verb RunAs"
    powershell "start code -v runAs"

The second line is just a shorter version. An empty cmd will pop up, but you can close it.

Answer 12

Open power-shell as administrator and run

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted

Answer 13

None of the above worked for me on windows 11, as of 2024jan. This is the most consistent behavious,which does not require you to do the

1. Right click in the folder, open in terminal (you can also open terminal as an adminsitrator if you like). Then run python myscript.py and it will work.

Enabling administrator mode in the compatibility tab of the app works in few scenarios but the one i suggested should work in all scenarios.