What is known as the root access in Linux machines, in the Windows computers it is called elevated access. Both are basically same in the way they provide highest level access to the computer’s hardware, file systems and other settings related to the operating system. In Windows, when you have to launch a program with the elevated privileges, you have to right-click on the and select Run as administrator from the context-menu. But if your work involves launching multiple programs with the elevated access every day or every time you start your PC, then you may benefit from a little tool called Elevated Startup.
This small tool can help you launch multiple applications with elevated privileges at Windows logon. This way you do not have to right-click on each and every single application to run them with the desired access. Elevated Startup does not confuse with a large number settings either. It keeps matters to the simplest and offers you only with one checkbox labeled Enabled which if selected makes Elevated Startup launch at Windows logon.
Other than clicking on this checkbox, the second thing that you will have to do is copy your application shortcuts to a special folder. This folder can be opened by clicking on the Open Elevated Startup Directory button. This folder is similar to the Startup folder that is present in every Windows PC and which helps you auto-run applications at the startup. The folder created by Elevated Startup tool is a little different in the sense that it auto-runs the applications at Windows logon but with elevated privileges.
Now when you reboot Windows, it will first launch the Elevated Startup tool which might show you a UAC (user account control) prompt depending on the UAC settings in your Windows PC. In the most of the computers the default setting is to display the UAC prompt. In the UAC prompt, you have to click on the Yes button. After this Elevated Startup will tool will launch all the applications from its special folder and all of these applications will be given elevated privileges.
Conclusion: Elevated Startup provides with a simple solution to autorun applications with the elevated privileges which might save your time if you have to launch one or more applications with elevated access regularly. But this can be easily abused, as any user can accidentally copy a malicious program in the Elevated Startup folder and then that malicious program will easily gain elevated privileges.
You can download Elevated Startup from https://github.com/stefansundin/elevatedstartup/releases/.