How to set "Run this program as an administrator" programmatically

Solution 1:

You can programmatically set the "Run this program as an administrator" flag (the option you find in the Compatibility tab of an EXE's properties), by setting a simple registry key. You need to create a string value (REG_SZ) under one of these keys (if you want the setting to be per user or per machine, respectively):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

The name of the value needs to be the full path to your executable (if the path contains spaces, do not surround the path with quotes) and the data of the value must contain the string RUNASADMIN.

For sample:

reg.exe Add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers" /v "C:\Program Files\MyApp\Test.exe" /d "PUT__VALUE__HERE"

Compatibility Modes

WIN95 Windows 95
WIN98 Windows 98
WIN4SP5 Windows NT 4.0 SP5
WIN2000 Windows 2000
WINXPSP2 Windows XP SP2
WINXPSP3 Windows XP SP3
VISTARTM Vista
VISTASP1 Vista SP1
VISTASP2 Vista SP2
WIN7RTM Windows 7
WINSRV03SP1 Windows Server 2003 SP1
WINSRV08SP1 Windows Server 2008 SP1

Privilege Level

RUNASADMIN Run program as an administrator

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers" /v "C:\temp\compatmodel\iconsext.exe" /t REG_SZ /d "WINXPSP3 RUNASADMIN" /f

References: http://www.verboon.info/2011/03/running-an-application-as-administrator-or-in-compatibility-mode/

Solution 2:

This is a long shot, but if you have the word "setup" or "install" in the name of the EXE, Windows will prompt for elevation when running it. I don't know if that'll work with a control panel applet, though.

Solution 3:

Have you tried Microsoft's Application Compatibility Toolkit? It analyses your app and provides compatibility shims that might be able to help resolve your problem.

Solution 4:

Use a wrap program which uses ShellExcute that uses "runas" as its "verb" to run the program you want.