"su" and "sudo" are popular in the Unix world to run commands with full privileges.

For security, some Windows users operate in a limited user environment. Of course, this can make doing certain things difficult. There's a built-in program that can help do something similar to "su".

C:\>runas /user:administrator cmd
Enter the password for administrator:
Attempting to start cmd as user "COMPUTER\administrator" ...

The previous command will launch a command window with full administrator rights and privileges. From there you can start most (not all) programs. For example:

C:\>start iexplore c:\

This will load up a Windows Explorer window for drive C:

** The above command does not work with IE7.