Requesting Administrator Rights with Admin By Request (ABR)

First, right-click on the executable file that you have downloaded and choose “Run as Administator”. If the software you want to install is pre-approved (many things are), ABR will automatically allow the installation, and it will proceed as normal.

If the ABR administrator has not yet pre-approved the software, you’ll see a request form noting the specific app you’d like to run, your email address, phone number, and a box for entering a reason for running this software. Update this as appropriate, and click ‘OK’ to send that request in.

1. ABR will acknowledge the request

Once an LTS Staff Member has approved the request (usually within 5-10 minutes during business hours), ABR will alert you, and ask if you’d like to run that process now. Click ‘Yes’ to proceed.

ABR will then put up another window with the Help Desk phone number so that you can be ready to run whatever installation or procedure was just approved.

Click ‘OK’ to really get going and run that software, and you’re set.

If you’re going to be doing a number of administrative tasks (not just running one program) and need a whole session (up to three hours) to make a number of adjustments to the system’s configuration, run several programs, or what have you, you can request an ‘Admin Session’ following the steps below:

1. Go to the system tray in the lower right corner of your screen and look for a “green checkmark” icon.

2. Click on the icon and from the menu chose “Request administrator access.”

Fill out the form that pops up, and acknowledges your request.

1. Note that ‘Admin Sessions’ as ‘carte blanche’ access to the system, might take longer to approve, depending on who at Lehigh is responsible for the system.

2. Note also that because of the way Windows' interface is written, not all processes started run ‘As Administrator’ unless expressly coded to do so, or requested to do so. Many processes branch into processes that may not retain their starting permissions or properly elevate if needed. As such, it’s often best to start an elevated command window, and start processes from there to ensure they run fully elevated.