Abmindicate

Do not use!

Instead see unadmin, which works on Windows, macOS, and Linux.

The remainder of this page is retained only for historical interest.

Overview

Abmindicate is a tool for abdicating administrator rights on Windows.

See also alternatives.

How to use

Using the following executable carries some risk. In particular, if you perform an unexpected series of actions while using it, such as attempting to uninstall it without using the official “uninstall” command, there is some risk you’ll lose Administrator access permanently. If you think you’ll do that, and that sounds horrible to you, please don’t use it.

1. Click the following download link and run the installer.

   Download Abmindicate

2. Open up an elevated cmd.exe prompt (in explorer, right click on cmd.exe icon and select “Run as Administrator”).

   This normally puts “Administrator:” in the title bar of the cmd window. Here is a screenshot from Windows 10.

   

3. Run Abmindicate.

   abmindicate
   

   Here are some examples:

   1. Drop Administrator role always, except on Saturdays from 10-11am

      abmindicate except A10-11
      

   2. Drop Administrator role for the next 3 days:

      abmindicate until now+3d
      

   The format for times of day and days of the week is hrs3.

4. After abdicating the Administrator role, you must log out to actually lose Administrator privileges.

5. Don’t forget to register your use of Abmindicate using abmindicate@pluckeye.net! The author requires you do this so he can send important bug fix announcements to users (and he won’t disclose your email address to a third party).

6. To uninstall, run:

   abmindicate.exe uninstall
   

Commands

You can also find these by running abmindicate --help.

except

Will abdicate administrator rights except during the specified time(s). This is the default behavior if a time is given with no command. (For example, abmindicate 12-15 will abdicate at all times except between noon and 3 pm.)

during <hrs3>

Will abdicate administrator rights only during the specified time(s).

until <until>

Will abdicate administrator rights for a particular length of time, starting immediately.

list

Will print (i.e., show you) the current administrators.

never

Will disable abdication.

rescue

For emergencies. You’ll need to contact abmindicate@pluckeye.net for it to work.

status

Will print the current abdication status.

time

Will print the current time.

uninstall

Will disable abdication and remove all Abmindicate files.

help

Will print the available commands, with examples.

Alternatives

Instead of a utility like Abmindicate, one option is to manually create another computer administrator, assign it a long random password, and save the password on http://lockbox.pluckeye.net/ .

Similar tools

crontab (linux or macosx)

Like Abmindicate, the following commands are dangerous. And if you are not careful with them, you may remove your own administrative access and be unable to recover it. Beware!

sudo crontab -l | grep -v abmindicate >/tmp/root_crontab
for group in `groups`; do # abmindicate
  case $group in admin|sudo|wheel);; *) continue;; esac # abmindicate
  echo "# gain $group group on Saturdays at 1100 # abmindicate" >>/tmp/root_crontab
  echo "00 11 * * 6 /usr/sbin/usermod -a -G $group $USER # abmindicate" >>/tmp/root_crontab
  echo "# lose $group group on Saturdays at 1200 # abmindicate" >>/tmp/root_crontab
  echo "00 12 * * 6 /usr/sbin/usermod -G `id -Gn $USER | perl -lpe 's/\b$group\b//;s/\s+/,/g' # abmindicate` $USER >>/tmp/root_crontab
done
sudo crontab /tmp/root_crontab

Or maybe see this script.

delayed-admin (linux or macosx)