Windows: How to run a Program as Administrator - Once, Always or with Shortcut

In this tutorial, I will show you, how you can run a program on Windows 10, Windows 7 or Windows Vista as administrator.

This can, for example, always be necessary, if the program must have special rights. For example, this could be write permissions in a certain system folder to store files there.

I will show you in this tutorial, how you can run an application once as an administrator or hoy you can configure Windows, so that a certain program or a shortcut to the programm will be always executed with administrator rights. Finally, I'll show you how it works with a shortcut as well:

• How to run a program as an administrator once
• How to run a program always as an administrator
• How to run a shortcut always as an administrator

How to run a program as an administrator once

If you want a program run as an administrator only once, go as follows:

• Click with the right mouse button on the icon of the program (EXE file or shortcut to the program)
• In the context menu, click on "Run as administrator"
• Maybe, Windows will ask you, if you really want to run this program as administrator. Then, optionally confirm the dialog
• The program will start and will be run once with administrator privileges

If you have closed the program and after that, you restart the program in a normal way, the program will not run again as an administrator.

How to run a program always as an administrator

If you want, that a program is always and at every program start running as an administrator without re-adjusting the settings, you go this way:

• Go to the directory in which the EXE-file of the application is saved, for example to "C:\Programs"
• With the right mouse button, you click on the EXE of the program
• Click on "Properties" in the context menu
• Select the tab "Compatibility" and select the option "Run this program as an administrator" in the area "Privilege Level"
• Click on "OK"
• Eventually, Windows gives you a demand, which you have to confirm
• The application starts always as administrator

After you have closed the program and then you restart it again, the program will automatically run as an administrator immediately.

How to run a shortcut always as an administrator

Also a shortcut can be executed permanently as an administrator. Here I show you how to achieve that:

• Click with the right mouse on the shortcut. For example the shortcut on your desktop.
• In the context menu, click on "Properties"
• In the tab "Shortcut", click on the button "Advanced"
• Select the option "Run this program as an administrator" there and confirm it with "OK"

With this, every time you follow the shortcut, the underlying program will be run as an administrator.