Elevated Priviliges for Startup Applications in Windows?

The simplest and best way to do this is to set your application to be started when you log in, with Task Scheduler (Start search, or Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler).

  1. Check the "Run with highest privileges" box on the General tab.
  2. On the Triggers tab, create a new trigger for when you log in.
  3. On the Actions tab, create a new action to start your chosen application.

This will launch your program as Administrator whenever you start up and log in.


This article covers quite a few options of how to do this. Among them are:

  • Using BeyondTrust in the Enterprise
  • Use Task Manager to launch startup applications
  • Use the Application Toolkit to disable UAC for selected application
  • Switch off UAC (Not Recommended / Bad Practice)

The option to Always run as administrator available when Right Clicking and going to Properties will still cause a UAC prompt, it just forces the application to always launch as administrator.

The other option is to edit the local machine policy and allow administrators to launch applications without being prompted.