RunAsTime is a lightweight portable software for Windows that can run applications in the date and time that you specify. Unlike other tools that change the system data and time for that, RunAsTime injects the desired date and time into the application directly without altering the system time. The application is made to believe that the system time is set to the selected date and time, when in fact it is not.

All options are displayed in the main application interface on startup.

Here you can select the application that you want to run in a different date and time and the desired date and time. It is optionally possible to add startup parameters to the program start. A click on Run starts the program with the selected date, time and parameters.

You can click on create desktop shortcut to create a desktop shortcut for that configuration. Handy if you need to start the program regularly. The program supports a second mode of operation called Immediate Mode. This mode injects the data and time directly without waiting for the kernel to be fully loaded. This may fix problems with applications who get the real system time and not the time configured in RunAsDate. Some applications on the other hand may crash when Immediate Mode is used.

Like many other Nirsoft applications, RunAsDate can be launched from the command line. The supported parameters are the following ones:

RunAsDate.exe {/immediate} {/movetime} [dd\mm\yyyy] {hh:mm:ss} [Program to run] {Program parameters}

RunAsDate does not work on all Windows programs. It is only compatible with 32-bit applications and won’t affect applications that get the time from a secondary source.

Windows users can download RunAsDate from the official Nirsoft website.

The runas command could be used to run an application with lower privileges but it has the serious disadvantage that there is no password switch meaning the user has to enter the password whenever he is executing the application. It does not work with blank passwords and requires the Secondary Logon service to be running.

A better alternative is the PsExec tool by Sysinternals. That little tool can be used to start any application with another user. Unlike runas it comes with a password switch.

PsExec is part of the PsTools suite of Sysinternals, you only need psexec.exe which should be moved into a system path folder, for example system32.

The next step would be to create a new user account in Windows. To do that go to Control Panel > User Accounts and click on the Create A New Account link in there. Now type a name for the new account and set it to be limited in the next window.

Specify a password for the account by clicking on the Create Password link in the user account control. Once the limited account has been created it is time to test if psexec is working properly.

Start the Windows command line by pressing [windows R], typing cmd and hitting enter. Now type the following command to test the functionality of psexec:

psexec -d -u "low privileges" -p test notepad

This will start notepad using the user account low privileges with the password test. If everything worked out well notepad should appear. It is now time to check if notepad has been executed with lower privileges.

The Task Manager can be started with [CTRL ALT DEL]. Click on View > Select Columns in the top menu and check the User Name box so that the username that started an application is shown in the Task Manager.

You should now be able to locate the username with the lower privileges and see that notepad was started from that account.

It would be time consuming to run the processes from the command line all the time. You can simply create a bat file with the command to start the applications that you want to run with lower privileges. To do that for Firefox you would add the line

psexec -d -u "low privileges" -p test "D:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe"

in the bat file. The file could then be moved into the start menu.