Fix: You must be an Administrator Running a Console Session

It is possible that while running a command in the Command prompt, you have encountered the “You must be an Administrator running a Console session” error and are now curious as to why it occurs in the first place. Even running a simple command like an SFC scan requires you to be in the admin mode in order for the command to be executed properly

In most cases, the error is shown only if you have executed a command that requires admin-level access but you are running a non-admin session of the command prompt. In this article, we have included some workarounds that will allow you to be able to launch the command prompt as an administrator. Either temporarily or permanently.

To launch Command Prompt as an Administrator:

1. Press “Windows + S” to launch the Windows Search and type in “Command Prompt”, once the result is shown to you, right-click on it and select the “Run as Administrator” option and make sure to confirm the UAC prompt. Now, run the “sfc /scannow” command and check to see if it is executed.

   

2. Another method to launch the command prompt as administrator is to press the “Windows + R” keys on your keyboard to launch into Run, type in “cmd” and press “Shift + CTRL + Enter” to launch with admin permissions.

To Always Launch Command Prompt as an Administrator

1. Press “Windows + S” to launch the Windows Search service and type in “Command Prompt”. Right-click on the first option that appears and select the “Open File Location” button.

   

2. After that, right-click on the shortcut that is highlighted and select the “Send To > Desktop Create Shortcut” option.
3. From here, navigate to the desktop, right-click on the newly created shortcut and select “Properties”.
4. Click on the “Shortcut” tab from the top and select the “Advanced” button.
5. In here, make sure to check the “Run as Administrator” button to always run the command prompt as an admin.

   

6. Now, every time you run the command prompt from this shortcut, it will be run in admin mode.

Use NSudo if Error Still Occurs:

1. Download the NSudo application on your computer and run the downloaded executable to install it.
2. From the program window, make sure to check the “Enable All Privileges” option and in the Open dialogue box, type in “cmd” and press the “Run” option.
3. After this, make sure to check if Command Prompt opens in admin mode and that the You must be an Administrator running a Console session error is fixed.

Disabling UAC

1. Press “Windows + R” to launch into the Run prompt, type in “msconfig” and press “enter” to launch into the Microsoft configuration panel.

   

2. From here, click on the “Tools” tab and select the “Change UAC Settings” option and click on the “Launch” button to launch into the UAC settings window.
3. From here, move the slider to the bottom and click on “OK” to save the settings.
4. Check to see if doing so fixes the You must be an Administrator running a Console session issue.

Running a Memory Test

1. Press “Windows + R” to launch Run and type in “mdsched.exe” and press “Enter”.

   

2. Select the “Restart Now and Check for Problems” option and restart your computer.
3. Once restarted, wait for the checking process to be completed and check to see if the issue at hand is fixed.

If you are still unable to fix the issue, contact us for further troubleshooting.