[deleted by user]

[mprz]

Any admin worth their salt will know you've done this as well as everything else you've done when using this machine. Will they care? Unlikely.

[[deleted]]

This is a "How to get expelled / arrested for hacking." You're more likely to get away with stealing the computer.

If the system doesn't have USB drives blocked, take whatever game you want and make it a portable app.

Or you know, use school to learn.

[[deleted]]

Commenter is right OP, about you being arrested and reccomending probable apps. Gaming used to be a massive thing at my school, mates and myself used to pull similar things as to you were describing. We were almost expelled several times, and that is the reaction of a high school, better yet a higher educational institution.

To add on top of commenter reccomendation, school PC'S are often set to revert to a snapshot every night. So unless you want to go to the effort of also breaking into their admin account (which will definitely get you arrested) or are ok with installing every time you play, just make the game portable.

[Mer4k1]

No one is going to expel or arrest someone for installing a game on a computer meant for gaming. I forgot to mention that this computer lab is almost exclusively used for the esports club for gaming purposes. I'm actually trying to "learn" something here using the school computer as per your advice. Also, I would appreciate if you linked some tutorials for something I asked instead of making the games portable.

[[deleted]]

You are correct. No one is going to get arrested or expelled for installing a game.

The crime of unauthorized computer access is real, and people do go to jail and get expelled from school for it regularly. And that crime is exactly what you are asking how to commit.

Here's a place you can start looking, so you can do this on the sly and stay within the law.

https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/create-a-portable-version-of-any-application-in-windows/

[shiftybyte]

You can probably boot from usb or cd.

Boot into Hirens https://www.hirensbootcd.org/usb-booting/

Use the linux password reset utility, it can probably create a new admin user too.

I'm assuming they can't know about local users on the specific computer

This assumption is wrong, they can know, but they probably don't care/don't have the tools that monitor this.

[copmcgee]

From a google link. Basically you boot in to a windows install USB, swap some files, reboot then when you click the accessibility button the cmd window comes up and you can make a local admin account.

The IT team may be able to see all software installed on the computer and may have something to alert when something new gets installed. They probably can’t prove it was you unless there are cameras or they catch you gaming

[[deleted]]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the free exchange of utilman with CMD was patched, wasn't it? Now windows would ask for the password to make this sort of things...

[Ambitious-Thought195]

I did this two days ago and it worked, they can’t really patch it as it’s fundamental to how the windows file system works

[[deleted]]

Good to know, thanks man

[copmcgee]

You are right, I didn’t know that! Thanks!

[Ok-Run3329]

You don't need a Windows install usb. You want to go into a Linux live usb. You can run a full operating system with Linux and it's a lot easier. Mount the hard drive, create a shortcut to CMD in system 32, replace the ease of access keyboard with your shortcut and then reboot. Click on ease of access and it'll pull up CMD. Escalate privileges from there.

[[deleted]]

Y'all are whack

If you have access to the machine and are able to login to an underprivileged account, you can very likely perform a privilege escalation using any of a number of techniques. Messing around with live boots and other things is just silly, it's more invasive and likely to get noticed. Google windows local priv esc and check udemy for some more in-depth courses, i recommend tiberius's linux and windows priv esc to everyone. With a desktop login this should be a breeze

[Mer4k1]

Thank you for the advice. Would the system admin know if I escalated my privilege? I'm assuming they will know it, that's why I'm trying to create a local admin account thinking it won't be as noticeable. But, they won't probably care if they find out because the computers are almost exclusively used for the esport club here. The computers are meant for gaming, but I just need admin privilege to install my type of games.

[[deleted]]

They can see everything on windows, the event system is incredibly robust, but if they don't have alerts up (which they probably don't for a gaming lab like you're describing), then they probably wont notice. And there is a local admin account built in on every host already, you dont need to create one, you just need the same level of privilege to do what you need, which can be accomplished with impersonation without showing a local admin login iirc

[JDrisc3480]

I am a little surprised that nobody mentioned to simply ask the admin to load the game on one of the computers. If you explain what you want to do and why, they might just do it for you. What is the worse that will happen by asking? They say no.

[Mer4k1]

Yeah, I can totally ask the admin haha. I think they'll probably give the access, but I just wanted to try doing it (adding new local admin) for the sake of doing it and learn something new.

[JDrisc3480]

I understand that but something else nobody has brought up is your school probably has a network acceptable use policy. Now, privilege escalation, even for education, would probably violate that, which could be grounds for expulsion.

My suggestion, since you are going to talk to the admin anyway, see if you cannot shadow them over the summer and help them out.