Run an application as a domain user from VPN

Question

I am connected to a VPN as a domain user. I would like to run a local application as the domain user from the VPN instead of my local workgroup user.

If I select run as a different user and insert the username; domain\user and the respective password I get:

login failure: unknown user name or bad password

Does Windows know that I am referring to the domain from the VPN? How do I achieve this?

Answer 1

A Windows computer can only run applications as either a local user or as an account from the machine's domain or a trusted domain. If your local computer is not joined to the domain, it cannot launch applications as a domain user. Being joined to the domain is different than simply being connected to a VPN.

If your workstation is domain-joined, then depending on local and group policies, you can run an application as a domain user by shift-right-clicking on the program and choosing "Run as different user". If this does not work, then contact your domain administrator for help in this scenario; they may have policies preventing you from doing what you are trying to do.

Even if your workstation is not domain-joined, you can cause locally running programs to authenticate to remote computers as a different user than they are running as. If you launch a program from the console as:

runas /netonly /user:DOMAIN\Username C:\Path\To\Application.exe

The program will run as the locally logged on user, but any network access that supports Windows authentication will appear to come from the given domain account.