Pass parameters to program started with Runas

Question

I am trying to start Performance monitor as different user. I found runas.exe but syntax for program arguments makes me go crazy. The following syntax works:

C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:domain\username perfmon.exe

But since perfmon.exe has the argument */res* the following line doesn't work:

C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:domain\username perfmon.exe /res

I tried to escape */res* but without any success. I tried:

"/res"
\"/res\""
\"\/res\""

Any ideas?

Answer 1

The correct syntax is to include both the target executable and its parameters in double quotes like this:

runas.exe /user:domain\username "perfmon.exe /res"

runas.exe /user:domain\username "perfmon.exe \"argument with spaces\" /res"

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More Information: Runas command

Answer 2

For anyone stumbling upon this while searching for a way to use runas with an application where its own parameters may contain spaces.

The original accepted answer with \" did not work for me.

What works is to put a double quote to actually be able to pass arguments with spaces:

runas.exe /user:domain\username "perfmon.exe ""argument with spaces"" /res"

It is actually explained quite nicely here: https://ss64.com/nt/syntax-esc.html