i've seen a ton of posts at so many forum sites that say if one runs cmd as administrator it starts in the C:\Windows\System32 path instead of the normal user path. well that is not correct at all. not on my home premium sp1 that is. when i run cmd as administrator it starts in the same user path as it always does. is this because my UAC is off? i'm assuming that is the difference maybe... still i can run any command from the normal user path, but i'm curious to know if there is some other reason it does not load to the system32 path when i run it as administrator? i've made my own shortcut to the elevated cmd all the same though, where it does load to system32, but i've yet to be able to see any difference in what commands can be used here that can't be used in the other one. nor have i seen any difference in effectiveness as well. and yes i'm the admin of the pc, the only user with admin permissions, the owner of and have full control of all files and folders on the system...
Mine starts at the User path as well. Likewise, I got UAC turned off. That might be the reason why, as you said
This is the default behaviour, when you open a CMD "normal" ie just clicking, it will open in your user path but if you start it as Admin (via context menu) it will be system32 (even with UAC disabled), just test it out. Edit: also note, its completly irelevant which default path you have, in commandprompt you can use any executables you find in your Windows folder under any path, its some sort of linking, only works with files you have in your windows folder.
Yep, Shenj's assumption seems to be correct. And my assumption here is that the default path is System32 because that's where cmd.exe is actually located. Running things by "Run as ..." probably also returns the path as well