CRM 2011 – How to open CRM as a different user

Sometimes you need to open CRM 2011 as a different user so you can test security privildges and functionality that certain users should/shouldn’t be able to use.

You can do this in internet explorer by going to the tools section on Internet explorer -> Security -> Custom Level -> scrolling right the way down to the bottom and changing the authorisation for prompt for username and password

The downside of this is it means you have to put in a password every time you access CRM, which can get very frustrating.

I found a slightly easier way to do this.  You can choose to run internet explorer as another user.  To do this you will need to make a .bat file with the line below.

runas /user:username@domain “C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe http://<yourcrmserver>/loader.aspx”

an example is

runas /user:#HOSK@HOSKDOMAIN”C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe http://crm2011/Demo/loader.aspx”

runas /user:username@domain “C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe http://<yourcrmserver>/loader.aspx”

The example is set for Windows 7, if you have an older version of windows you probably will need a different path to internet explorer e.g. not (x86) and just Program Files,
runas /user:<testuser>\<domain> “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore http://<yourcrmserver>/loader.aspx”

Where it says username and domain you will need to provide the username and domain for the user.

It will then have opened Internet Explorer as that user.  You will then need to put in your username and password again when you start CRM.

So is that an improvement?  it is a little bit of an improvement because when you open internet explorer as normal it will remember your usual authentication.

Hopefully someone might have a better solution but this one might help you