How to run a program with elevated permissions from a limited permission user account without administrator password?

Question

Pretend that I am a Karaoke DJ running a show with the application Sax & Dottys which only runs on Windows. I would like to hire someone to run the show for me in my absence. This means they would use my computer and software to run the show. But I don't want them to be able to copy/steal the Karaoke files from my computer.

My idea is to create a user account for them that does not have permissions to read/write to the directories containing the Karaoke files. But their user account should have access to run the Sax & Dottys application, and that application should run with elevated permissions so it could read the karaoke files and directories.

Is there some way to allow a limited permission user to run an application with elevated privileges without that user knowing the password to grant administrator access?

Basically, I would like to make it so the user does have access to the files on the file system but only through the Sax & Dottys application. I don't want them to have access to the files by any other means. Is this possible in Windows 7? How?

Answer 1

To launch an application with Admin creds in a limited account, create a shortcut to the application in the limited account. Right-click the shortcut > Properties Add the following to the beginning of the target line.

C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /savecred /user:Administrator

Then launch it once using the shortcut and enter the Administrator password. All subsequent launches will no longer require you to enter the password.

This will not solve your problem though. Your best bet is to use a Kiosk application.