There is a program that I want run with administrator privileges in the context of an unprivileged user. I want it run at startup (the user's local login), obviously without the user having to type the admin password. How do I do this? Sort of like sudo in *nix except in Windows.

They do that here at work.
With programs like FixWelch.exe, etc.

I will ask the right people....

You could create a sort of launcher if none such exists. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/security/security/privileges.asp

runas

[quote author=Arta[vL] link=board=2;threadid=7856;start=0#msg72291 date=1090704001]
runas
[/quote]Already thought of that. Unfortunately, it seems that runas requires you to type an admin password every time you run the program, which is exactly what I don't want.

[quote author=Eibro[yL] link=board=2;threadid=7856;start=0#msg72289 date=1090703913]
You could create a sort of launcher if none such exists. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/security/security/privileges.asp
[/quote]
Hmm, that URL redirects me to 404 :(

Even Sudo requires a password.

Sorry, Yoni, nobody I talked to had any ideas except Arta's suggestion.

What do you want to accomplish?

One option is to have a "startup script" that is run by the system account when the computer is started. Not when the user logs on though. And a script that runs as administrator won't be accessing the user's stuff anyway - different registry, different mapped drives, etc.

Scheduled Task set to run at boot time?

Tried playin around in msconfig on that account?

[quote author=Thing link=board=2;threadid=7856;start=0#msg72319 date=1090715449]
Scheduled Task set to run at boot time?
[/quote]Brilliant! I will try that as soon as the room containing said computer frees itself of sleeping people.

Adron: I don't want the program accessing that user's stuff anyway. It's sort of like an interactive service (has a tray icon and all), except it doesn't install itself as a service.

[quote author=Yoni link=board=2;threadid=7856;start=0#msg72331 date=1090717875]
Adron: I don't want the program accessing that user's stuff anyway. It's sort of like an interactive service (has a tray icon and all), except it doesn't install itself as a service.
[/quote]

Srvany (comes with the resource kit) is a Microsoft-supplied generic service process. It's used for running any application as a service. It sounds like just what you need.

Aha! That will work as well. I had known about instsrv.exe, but not about srvany.exe (and I wondered whether instsrv.exe would ever be useful). This KB article explains.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;137890

Thanks! :)

(Edit: Fixed link)