How do I request Administrator privileges during runtime so the user is given the prompt to allow or disallow it?
This information is written in the exe file manifest. You must use the requestedExecutionLevel
field (but not sure about that - try setting it to highestAvailable
and see if it does what you need). See for example here for more information (somewhat older article but still valid): Link
There are tools in Visual Studio which allow you to embed your own manifest or even just edit it. Also there is a tool written in Perl ( http://metacpan.org/pod/Win32::Exe::Manifest ).
EDIT: see this article for more info: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/66259/Requesting-Admin-Approval-at-Application-Start.aspx