user with non-admin rights can't initialize drive

[WindowsStar]

...
If it's just for fomratting drives you might think about using a laptop that is off your internal netowrk and give local admin rights to that, then restoring the HD image after he's done if you are really tight on security.

Seperate machine, off the network, and obviously if itp's off the network it has to be a non domain account logging into it...

My sincerest apologies and forgive my poor reading skills.

 

[fseal]

Heh it's ok I done it myself a couple times reading through a new thread.

Also, I hate it when your (my) post is the last once on a page becuase frankly I won't think ANYONE actually sees it. The next post goes to page 2 and your last post on page 1 had a two minute window of visibility and will never be seen again.

 

[StuberB]

Solution

Hi,

Thanks for everyone's input. Here's the deal. The reason why the user wasn't able to reinitialize the hard drive, even though he had local rights, is because Windows 7 defaults the Windows Explorer process to the credentials used initially to log in. So, even if you use run-as with a different user credentials it still will run Window's explorer with user account logged in.

You have to launch the Windows Explorer process separately. Believe it or not there is a setting within Win7 that will allow you to toggle this off and on. See below.

Start > All Program > Accessories > Windows Explorer

Go-to 'Tools'; if 'Tools' isn't available then

Click 'Organize', go-to Layout and select 'Menu', then go-to

Tools > Folder Option; click 'View' tab and scroll half-ways down to select 'Launch folder windows in a separate process'

My user is now able to use local 'Power User' rights to do everything he needs to do without giving him administrative rights.

 

[Tepid]

as a side note to your instructions above. If you hit the ALT key with Explorer up, you will get the old File Edit Tools bar populate. You can then click on Tools and Folder Options from there.

Glad it all worked out.