One of the pains of module development and skin development is being able to view your work as the user would view it without having to logout and log back in. This is especially true if you are testing different permission sets and you want to see what it looks like as the Host, the Administrator and a custom role that you created. This lab walks through a simple tool that allows you to have a separate instance of IE running as a different user with it's own profile, cookies etc.

Windows software developers are undoubtedly familiar with the Run As feature in Windows. It allows you to run a program as a different user that the one currently logged in. This is an indispensable tool for developers that are developing on a machine where they have admin rights and they are creating a program that needs to be run in a non-admin environment (also known as the real world). This is all the background I feel led to give, the rest of this lab is simple step-by-step instructions on how to make the technique work for you.

How to Create a Test User to Run IE

1. Go to Start>Administrative Tools>Computer Management
2. Create a new user with the username and password set to "test"
3. Create a new shortcut on the desktop
4. Set it to the following
5. %windir%\system32\runas.exe /profile /user:<domain>\test /savecred "c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe"
6. Save the shortcut
7. Double-click to run IE as the test user
8. When it prompts you for the password, type in "test"
9. If you feel like it, you can also right-click on the shortcut, go to properties and click "Change Icon" to make it prettier for those developers that are more visually sensitive.

That's it - pretty easy huh? Now, when you are wanting to test things as an Admin and as a lowly registered user, you can open your Test Browser and have a completely seperate session with seperate cookies and everything - because it is being run through an entirely different user!

Happy Coding!