%CD% variable behaviour differs when right click and use run as admin

Question

I have a windows cmd file that is making use of the %CD% environment variable to determine the execution directory of the cmd file.

When I run the cmd file from the command line it works correctly, meaning that the %CD% variable contains the working directory. If I double left click the cmd it also works as I expect. However if I right click the cmd file and select runas administrator then the %CD% variable contains the value "C:\Windows\system32" not the curent directory where the cmd is executing.

I was able to reproduce the problem with the following script:

echo %CD%
pause

Answer 1

Trying using %~dp0 instead of %cd%... this should give you the directory which contains the batch (NT shell) script was launched from in any case.

Answer 2

Are you confusing working/current directory with the directory your batch file is in?

If I have a simple batch file with just

@echo off
echo %cd%

and this is stored in c:\foo\bar\test.cmd

In cmd I execute

cd c:\foo
bar\test

test.cmd will print c:\foo and not c:\foo\bar

I assume UAC uses system32 since it is possible to elevate with a different user and that user might not have access to whatever the current directory is.

If you want the directory your batch file is in, use %~dp0, if you want the current directory, use . or %CD%