Windows XP: pass a file to an application that will be executed as admin user

Challenge?
Run a Windows application as the local Admin user, and directly pass a file path to open with that app.

Fail attempts…
I thought a Windows Command Line script would be the easiest to achieve my challenge. So I tried using…

RUNAS – which runs a specific application under the given name. BUT doesn’t allow to pass a parameter (f.eg. file path)

START – starts an application and let’s you pass a parameter (f.eg. file path). BUT doesn’t allow you to start the application as a different user.

Solution!
So I continued searching the Internet, and I finally stumbled upon a hint which lead me to the solution: you need to modify a shortcut to the affected application!

In my case I had the issue with the Adobe AIR package- installer and passing directly an Adobe AIR-application to it for install.

Here’s what I did:

1. Create a Shortcut to the .EXE-application
   
    
2. Right-click the Shortcut and select “Properties”
   
    
3. Move the text-cursor to the very right end of the textfield “Target“, add a space,
   …and copy-paste the path of the file you want to pass to the application (the path must be enclosed by double-quotes ” “)
   
    
4. Now click on “Advanced” in the same window and activate the checkbox “Run with different credentials”
   
    
5. Execute the modified Shortcut now, enter the desired credentials, and…Tadaa!