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Run As Pro

RunAs Professional, from MAST Hard- & Software, enables LUAs to run certain programs as Administrators. The program creates a ".RAP" file that contain the encrypted password for the privileged account and a reference to the program to be executed (plus some option flags). A file shortcut to the .RAP file can then be given to the LUA (say in Start->Programs or the Desktop) that will execute the specific desired program with the privileges of the specified account.

RunAs Professional can also be used from the command line with a password parameter for running from scripts, but I haven't used it myself for that. This is a commerical program with a 30-day trial, and can be downloaded from the Mast site. The registration price is a very reasonable 10 Euros.

I've used "RunAs Professional" (runasp.exe) for a couple years now to allow family members to run programs that seem to require Administrator access, despite my efforts to set up those programs to avoid it.I created a new account in the Administrators group called "GamePlayer" that isn't displayed in the initial logon screen just for use with runasp.exe, and used a fairly complex password since it didn't have to be used interactively (except by me when creating new .RAP files).

Cautions
Note that I do not know how strong the password encryption is, and that there is a "vulnerability" reported on BugTraq that says that a executable file name can be changed to the one in a .RAP file to allow a user to run other executables. For both these reasons, I wouldn't use the program in a serious corporate security environment without more investigation. But, I think the system is sufficiently secure for a home (non-hostile) environment, especially considering the overall security improvement by using LUAs for the normal user (in my case, kids browsing to sites containing aggressive marketing)