Runas Error: Unable to Acquire Password

Question

I'm trying to start visual studio 2010 from command prompt using 'RUNAS' so that I can run it as a different user. I ran the following command:

runas /profile /user:myPCName/SomeUserName "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe"

My problem is that the commandprompt says "Enter the password for myPCName/SomeUserName:" but I cannot enter the password. I just get the error "RUNAS ERROR: Unable to acquire user password"

I googled this for a while and the only answer I found was that I cannot see the password entered, but it is entered anyways, and that I must be typing the wrong password. I'm certain I'm not typing the wrong password.

Answer 1

There are so many things your forgot to document:

• what is your logon provider? Are you attached to a domain?
• are your running this from a UAC elevated command prompt?
• what does the real user name look like? Is it a system account?
• does the user account actually exist on your machine?
• can you logout and logon as that user from your machine?
• does that also work when you disconnect from the network?
• do you actually type this command or is it called from a .bat or script?
• "cannot enter the password", you can't type it or it doesn't like what you typed?

Serverfault.com is a good place to ask about user authentication.