Command line option to open program as administrator in Windows 7

If I want to open Notepad and edit the hosts file, I have to invoke the Start menu, find the Notepad shortcut, right click and run as administrator, then open the hosts file in Notepad in order to edit.

Is there a way to use the command line to open Notepad as administrator? Something like press win + R and enter notepad /admin. Is this possible?

You can do it a little bit faster by pressing Win, type in Search notepad and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

Or you can keep a command-prompt window open with higher privileges all the time and if some program needs to be opened with elevated privileges just start it from there with for instance: start notepad.

Take a look at runas /? in command prompt.

• Press Win + R to open the run command line
• Type notepad C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

I believe this should open your hosts file in Notepad as an adminstrative user. It does for me anyway.