Running PHP scripts as a different user

It seems that several people have run into a problem where PHP did not have permission to access certain folders / files in Windows. I have two solutions that I have tried on WinXP, if others could verify if this works on other Windows platforms this would be helpful. Solution #1: Use the function CACLS to grant PHP's user access to the file / folder and then return permissions to normal when finished. To do this manually use 1. Start -> Run -> cmd 2. "CACLS somefile.ext /E /G youruser:F " 3. "c:\php5\php.exe -f yourphpfile.php" 3. "CACLS somefile.ext /E /D youruser" Since this is a shell command, I thought we could also do this from a php script. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to work? Here's what I tried for those that want to give it a shot: function switchUserExec($absfile, $user = null, $permission = 'F', $php = 'C:/php5/php.exe') { $absfile = escapeshellarg($absfile); $user = escapeshellarg($user); $permission = escapeshellarg($permission); $php_cli = escapeshellarg($php_cli); $com = getenv('ComSpec').' /C '; exec("$com CACLS $absfile /E /G $user:$permission"); exec("$com $php -f $absfile", $result); exec("$com CACLS $absfile /E /D $user"); return $result; } Solution #2 (suphp.bat): @ECHO OFF REM This is an example batch file for Windows systems running php. REM It should enable you to run PHP from the command line as any user REM you specify. The main reason I made this was to temporarily give REM PHP permission to access files of a specific user. Change these REM lines to match the user and path info for your system SET "PHP=C:\php5\php-win.exe" SET "USER=someuser" SET "PHP_FILE=C:\path\to\somescript.php" REM You *can* add the switch /savecred to save the password REM and avoid retyping each time, not sure how secure this is? RUNAS /user:%USER% "%PHP% -f %PHP_FILE%" @ECHO ON