Elevated Program Shortcut without UAC Prompt - Create

How to Create an Elevated Program Shortcut without a UAC Prompt in Windows​

   Information

This will show you how to create an elevated "Run as administrator" shortcut of any installed program using Task Scheduler so that it will not give you a UAC prompt for permission when you start it while still having UAC turned on in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8.

In the tutorial, you will first create a new task, then a new shortcut to run the task. Afterwards, how to change the icon of the shortcut.

   Note

Special thanks to OEM for pointing this out, and the previous Vista version by DMEX.

   Warning

• This shortcut and task can only be created and work while logged in as an administrator account.
• This shortcut will not work in a standard user account.

Here's How:
1. Press the Windows + R keys to open the Run dialog, type taskschd.msc, and press Enter.
NOTE: This will open Task Scheduler. This file is located at:
C:\Windows\system32\taskschd.msc.

2. While having Task Scheduler Library selected in the left pane, click/tap on Create task in the far right pane. (see screenshot below)

3. Under the General tab, type in the "Name" of the program you want to create this shortcut for. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: This will be the name of the task. As an example, I will use CCleaner for that program. Make note of this name, you will need it later in step 12 and 14 below.

4. Check the Run with highest privileges box. (See screenshot below)

5. Click/tap on the Configure for drop down box to open it, and select Windows® 7, Windows Server™ 2008 R2 or the Windows you are currently in. (see screenshot above and below)
NOTE: This is like compatibility mode. If the program does not support running in Windows 7 normally, then you can select the OS that is does support running in instead to have it run in compatibility mode as if it was running in that OS instead of Windows 7.

6. Click/tap on the Actions tab, then on the New button. (see screenshot below)

7. In the Program/script: box in the Actions tab, copy and paste the path below. (see screenshot below step 9)
NOTE: Thank you to chillz for the updated steps 7 and 8.
%windir%\System32\cmd.exe
8. In the Add arguments (optional): box in the Actions tab, type in the argument below. (see screenshot below step 9)

NOTE: Substitute Task Name in the argument below with the name you entered in step 3 (ex: CCleaner) within quotes, and substitute Full Path of Program in the argument below with the actual full path of the program's .exe file within quote.
/c start "Task Name" "Full Path of Program"


For example:

/c start "CCleaner" "C:\Program Files\CCleaner\CCleaner64.exe"

9. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

10. Click/tap on the Conditions tab, and uncheck the Stop if the computer switches to battery power box first, then uncheck the Start the task only if the computer is on AC power box. (see screenshots below)
NOTE: This step is mostly for laptops, so that you will be able to run the program when the laptop is running on battery power.




11. Click/tap on OK. (See screenshots above)

12. You will now see your new task created with the name (ex: CCleaner) you gave it in step 3. Close Task Scheduler. (see screenshot below)

13. Right click or press and hold on an empty area of your desktop, then click/tap on New and Shortcut.

14. Type in the target below for the location field, then click/tap on the Next button. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: Subsitute task-name in the target with the name (ex: CCleaner) within quotes that you used in step 3.
schtasks /run /tn "task-name"

For example: For my task name CCleaner I used from step 3, I would type:
schtasks /run /tn "CCleaner"

15. Type in a name you want for the shortcut (ex: CCleaner), then click/tap on the Finish button. (see screenshot below)

16. Right click on the new shortcut (ex: CCleaner) on the desktop, then click/tap on Properties.

17. Click/tap on the Shortcut tab, and on the Change Icon button. (see screenshot below)

18. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

19. Click/tap on the Browse button. (see screenshot below)

20. Navigate to the .exe file of the program that you have created this shortcut with, select it, and click/tap on Open. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: If you have a icon of your own that you would prefer to use instead, then navigate to where you have that icon saved at instead.

21. Select the icon you want for the shortcut, then click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

22. Click/tap on OK. (see screenshot below)

23. You can now use this elevated shortcut to run at startup in your "Startup" folder, run at startup as a task, Pin to Start Menu, Pin to Taskbar, assign a keyboard shortcut, or move to where you like for easy use.

24. When you run this new elevated shortcut, you will now no longer have to click/tap on YES to approve the UAC prompt to allow the program run as administrator.

   Tip

To Undo and Remove this Task:

• While having Task Scheduler Library selected in the left pane, right click on the task in the right pane that you created in step 12, then click on Delete and Yes to approve.
• Delete the shortcut.

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Set Priority Level for Applications and Processes in Windows 7
• How to Run a Program as an Administrator in Windows 7
• How to See if Process is running as administrator (elevated) in Vista and Windows 7
• How to See if Process is running as administrator (elevated) in Windows 8 and 8.1
• How to Create an Elevated Command Prompt Shortcut in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Create an Elevated Windows 7 Task Manager Shortcut
• How to Change UAC Notification Settings in Windows 7
• How to Create a Task to Run a Program at Startup and Log On in Windows 7
• Enable or Disable the User Account Control (UAC) Blacking Out of Screen in Vista and Windows 7
• How to Elevate All Administrator Accounts UAC Privilege Level
• How to Add "Run as administrator" to VBS File Context Menu
• How to Add "Run as administrator" to MSI File Context Menu
• How to Require Users to Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to Approve UAC Elevation
• How to Create an Elevated Program Shortcut a Standard User is able to Run in Windows 7
• How to Change Behavior of User Account Control (UAC) Prompt for Standard Users
• How to Display a Message Reminder in Windows with Task Scheduler

 

[Brink]

Very nicely done, thanks a lot.
But what should i enter in program/script, if i am running portable program, that is not installed.
Namely, i have a problem with drag and drop in my photoshop6, since i installed win10, dropping the photos in won't work, which is quite frustrating.
After i tried with code in powershell:
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}

drag and drop worked, but ..... it corrupted all other windows apps, @N#%$%&/ .... so i had to re-install the wins again.

Photoshop is portable - not installed. Its not checked to run as admin, but still there is a yellow and blue shield on the icon and i can not do darn thing to change it.
Before i had win7 and no problems with dropping.

Can somebody help please

Hello Mina,

I'm not sure what you're wanting to do.

If you're wanting to remove the UAC shield from the icon, then it's just there to let you know that you will be prompted by UAC to approve to open it with elevated rights (run as administrator) when you open it.

Are you wanting to run the program without being prompted by UAC?

 

[Mina]

Hi Brink,

by "prompted by UAC" you mean windows asking me whether i allow the app to make changes on my pc?
i disabled that.

but since i have that shield on the icon (since i installed win10) i can not drag and drop the photos in the photoshop as i did before

 

[Brink]

Does it work if you enable UAC again?

 

[Mina]

No, not even opening the photoshop with the new shortcut
it only blink one window on the screen for a sec but then nothing happens, doesn't open

 

[Brink]

Are you able to use "Open with" to select the Photoshop .exe file to be the default program?

 

[Mina]

The programs doesn't have "open with" option

and as far as i know if i right-click on the photo, there was never an option to "open with" photoshop not even with "open with another app"

 

[Brink]

When you try "Open with" and "Choose default program", you should be able to browse and select the .exe file.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/12196-open-change-default-program.html

 

[Mina]

i know what you mean,
but like i said, there is no option "open with" for the photoshop and i never noticed that option for any other program.
it would be the same as you would want to open VLC player with "open with" option
???

"open with" works only with photos and docs, but never with programs. do you know what i am talking about?

try to find a portable photoshop on the web and run it (if you have win10) and see for yourself

 

[Brink]

Yeah, that's what I mean. Set the default program to be the Photoshop .exe file by using "Open with" from the photo files. This way you would just need to click on the photos file to have them open in Photoshop by default.

Are you not able to select the .exe file using Open with how I posted above?

 

[chrysalis]

What I would like to do is get this to work on a couple of programs that need a admin group user to work whilst I am using a limited user account.

The two programs are evga precision X and rivatuningstatistics server.

Probably also applies to any program that access hardware monitoring.

The problem is when adding them to task scheduler I have to use the credentials for admin account but then they dont appear on the limited user's system tray, so because of this I cannot use a limited user account for increased security.

 

[Brink]

Hello chrysalis,

For that, the method in the tutorial below should work in a standard account.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/193743-elevated-program-shortcut-create-standard-user.html

 

[bambambigalo]

this did not work for me, i was trying to execute zotac firestorm app without uac prompt on startup , but microsoft application compatibility toolkit worked for me, much simpler than this method (windows 7 )

 

[themadhatter43]

So I've tried this method about ten times now, and for the path (in the argument box) I first copy and pasted the path from my .exe's properties (all that did was open the file folder ), then I typed in nvidiaInspector.exe for the end of the path and it does absolutely nothing. A flash of a box will sometimes appear but nothing else. All I want to do is open nvidiaInpector without having to type in a password. Any help?

 

[Brink]

Hello themadhatter43, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Please go ahead and post screenshots showing all your settings for this, and I'll be happy to take a look to see if anything may stand out.

Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

 

[ZaphodBeeblbrox]

For those who want to run a task like Process Explorer and have it sitting in the system tray and minimised, all you have to do is, in section 8 on page 1, just add the optional argument "/min"

eg.

/c start /min "ProcExp64" "C:\Program Files\SysInternals\ProcExp64.exe"


(Sorry if I'm teaching granny to suck eggs, but it took me a while to realise this! )

(And this is for Windows 10)

 

[wcdevins]

Elevated Program Shortcut without UAC Prompt

Hello Shawn,

I followed your instructions in the above noted section. Thank you. However, it works only if I use the icon to start the program, but not if the program is called by another prompt. The old program is a picture/photo manager. If I select a picture file in my computer using Start/Pictures, eg, the menu has an option for "Open with..." When I select my program from this menu I still get the pop-up asking me if I want to run this program. It is extremely aggravating to have to respond to and wait for this prompt every time I open a picture file. I simply cannot see why there is no way to tell Windows that I trust this file and it is OK to open it whenever it is invoked.

Is there a way to get rid of the UAC pop-up when the Windows Photo Manager calls this file from its "Open with..." menu?

Many thanks,

BILL

 

[Brink]

Hello Shawn,

I followed your instructions in the above noted section. Thank you. However, it works only if I use the icon to start the program, but not if the program is called by another prompt. The old program is a picture/photo manager. If I select a picture file in my computer using Start/Pictures, eg, the menu has an option for "Open with..." When I select my program from this menu I still get the pop-up asking me if I want to run this program. It is extremely aggravating to have to respond to and wait for this prompt every time I open a picture file. I simply cannot see why there is no way to tell Windows that I trust this file and it is OK to open it whenever it is invoked.

Is there a way to get rid of the UAC pop-up when the Windows Photo Manager calls this file from its "Open with..." menu?

Many thanks,

BILL

Hello Bill, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Unfortunately, it will only work using the elevated shortcut. Are you able to open the pictures from within this elevated running app to avoid getting a UAC prompt when opening the picture direct instead?

UAC is designed to let you know and approve before anything runs with elevated rights that have full access to everything on the computer. Just imaging if malware was able to run with elevated rights without you knowing about it.

UAC will not let you have exceptions by design since if a white listed app was to be hijacked by malware, you would never know it until it's too late.

 

[wcdevins]

Elevated Program Shortcut without UAC Prompt

Hello Brink,

Thank you so much for the prompt and enlightening response. Once my old photo manager program is opened with the new Elevated Shortcut I can use the program to access files anywhere without the UAC prompt popping up.

I do find it unusual that, even if I have that program already opened with the new shortcut, I get a UAC prompt if I try to open a file via the "Open with..." option in Windows Photo Viewer, eg. Doesn't that program know the requested program is already open?

Thank you again,

BILL

 

[Brink]

Hello Brink,

Thank you so much for the prompt and enlightening response. Once my old photo manager program is opened with the new Elevated Shortcut I can use the program to access files anywhere without the UAC prompt popping up.

I do find it unusual that, even if I have that program already opened with the new shortcut, I get a UAC prompt if I try to open a file via the "Open with..." option in Windows Photo Viewer, eg. Doesn't that program know the requested program is already open?

Thank you again,

BILL

The elevated shortcut would only get applied to that single instance of the program.

If you try to open the program using any other method, it would still require a UAC prompt.

 

[verajart]

Troubleshooting

This is incredibly helpful and I got it to work for CCleaner, but I'm having difficulties with a different task. I'm trying to link two .exes to run together, without the Windows prompt for unverified applications. I checked and double-checked to make sure I have the locations correct in the Actions section. It's not running either program. I tried messing with the trigger section, even though you didn't indicate that was necessary in your tutorial. It doesn't seem to make a difference. No matter how I click on it, either through the run button in the list of tasks or from the shortcut on my desktop. I can provide screenshots but I don't really know what you would need to see why it's not working.
The two 'Add arguments' sections are:
/c/start "ESO AddOn Clients" "C:\Users\Veronica\AppData\Local\Minion\Minion.exe"
/c/start "ESO AddOn Clients" "C:\Documents\Elder Scrolls Online\live\AddOns\TamrielTradeCentre\Client\Client.exe"

They are two clients that run separate from the game The Elder Scrolls Online, to provide additional information and functionality in-game. Currently, I launch each one individually, each time clicking the yes button on the UAC prompt. It's rather annoying and I thought this little shortcut was just what I needed.
Is the problem that I'm trying to run two programs with one prompt? If so, is there a different solution? Like, can I make two separate tasks and then link them together somehow? It would just be so much easier if I only had to click one button for both apps to run.

Thanks in advance!