How to Make Specific Window Apps Automatically Run with Administrator Privileges

On any Windows operating system, all apps run on standard level privileges. This serves as a security measure to ensure that your computer is safe from suspicious applications that aim at infecting the system. However, you may find that some programs that you use daily need administrative privileges for maximum performance. In this case, you may need to configure some apps to automatically run with administrative privileges.

How to determine if an app is running in administrator mode

The application always has an indication if it is running on administrator capacity. Below are images that clearly show the difference between an app running as admin and one that is not.

The above is an instance of the Command Prompt running with standard privileges. To initiate a Command Prompt running as admin, you simply need to right-click on Command Prompt and select the ‘Run as Administrator’ option.

Below is an illustration of Command Prompt running as admin. You will notice the ‘Administrator:’ on the title bar. The root path also changes from the user’s folder the window system’s folder.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to change the default setting for application privilege allocation on initiation.

Prerequisites

To follow along with this tutorial, you will only need:

A computer with an administrator user access.

Step 1

For this tutorial, the Command Prompt will be the test application. However, this method is applicable to all Windows apps and Windows 7/8/8.1/10. Search for the application you wish to configure and right click on the result. Choose the ‘Open file location’ option as shown below. You will be redirected to the folder which has the program shortcut.

Step 2

Select the shortcut then right-click and select ‘properties. Alternatively, you can select the shortcut then find the properties option at the top panel as shown below.

Step 3

Navigate the top bar to ‘shortcut’ as shown below. You will then need to click on the ‘Advanced’ button shown below.

Step 4

Under the advanced properties, check the box indicated ‘Run as administrator’ then click ‘OK’ to save changes.

Conclusion

If you followed all the steps, you successfully configured your preferred windows application to always run as admin. You can replicate the steps for all the applications you need to run as admin.