Visual studio code terminal, how to run a command with administrator rights?

Option 1 - Easier & Persistent

Running Visual Studio Code as Administrator should do the trick.

If you're on Windows you can:

  1. Right click the shortcut or app/exe
  2. Go to properties
  3. Compatibility tab
  4. Check "Run this program as an administrator"
There is a caveat to it though

Make sure you have all other instances of VS Code closed and then try to run as Administrator. The electron framework likes to stall processes when closing them so it's best to check your task manager and kill the remaining processes.

Related Changes in Codebase
  • https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/293070-visual-studio-code/suggestions/8915236-visual-code-w-terminal-integrated-and-super-admin
  • https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/7407

Option 2 - More like Sudo

If for some weird reason this is not running your commands as an Administrator you can try the runas command. Microsoft: runas command

Examples
  • runas /user:Administrator myCommand
  • runas "/user:First Last" "my command"
Notes
  • Just don't forget to put double quotes around anything that has a space in it.
  • Also it's quite possible that you have never set the password on the Administrator account, as it will ask you for the password when trying to run the command. You can always use an account without the username of Administrator if it has administrator access rights/permissions.

Step 1: Restart VS Code as an adminstrator

(click the windows key, search for "Visual Studio Code", right click, and you'll see the administrator option)

Step 2: In your VS code powershell terminal run Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted


In my case even while running as admin I had to set the execution policy.

In the terminal type:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Scope Process

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_execution_policies?view=powershell-7.2