Running different programs, often does not pose problems, simply start the program – but running stuff involving Explorer does. My favorite way of using Explorer is by using Internet Explorer. I do a “%programfiles%\Internet Explorer\Iexplore.exe” and enter c:\temp or whatever in the address bar.
The next problem is to keep track of whether an Explorer windows is privileged or not. I would like to brand the windows, so it is clear which mode I’m in. I tried to change window colors and themes, but they all seem to be global. Finally, I came up with Internet Explorer branding. If you change “HKCU\software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title”, the text will appear on the title bar. There is just one problem – if you start iexplore with a file system path argument, the branding does not appear. Note that all command lines are bulleted so wrapping does not confused you. The command –
- "%programfiles%\Internet Explorer\Iexplore.exe" c:\temp
Can this be overcome? Yes. Use an html file that redirects to the file system path. In this way iexplore starts with html and uses the branding.
I have wrapped it all up in this bat file, which I call exp.bat –
- set url=%1
- reg add "hkcu\software\microsoft\internet explorer\main" /v "Window Title" /d "%userdomain%\%username%" /f
- set html=%temp%\explorer-redirect.htm
- echo ^<html^>^<head^>^<meta equiv="REFRESH" content="0; URL=file:%url%"^>^</head^>^</html^> > %html%
- start "" "%programfiles%\Internet Explorer\Iexplore.exe" %html%
- Exp c:\temp
1 comment:
Hey there. Just found your blog and as luck would have it, I was toying around with this the other day;
the branding is a neat idea.
That's a clever batch you've made and while this may or may not be a moot point, here's what I do from cmd.exe:
--> start iexplore about:blank
That's a local 'file' that still gets the branding. from there, type c:\ or any local path to retain branding.
when I want to run under different credentials I do this from cmd.exe:
--> runsas /user:account cmd
and then after entering the password I use the above trick in the new cmd box to get my elevated-privelage Explorer window.
Hope this helps!
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