How to set "Run as administrator" flag on shortcut created by MSI installer

Question

I have a Setup and Deployment project in Visual Studio 2010.

I would like the installer to create two shortcuts to the executable of another project in my solution. One normal shortcut that simply runs the application using current credentials and another which has the Run as administrator flag set, thereby ensuring that the user is asked for credentials with administrative rights when clicking the shortcut.

Running the application with administrative rights enables certain features that are otherwise not available.

Setting this flag doesn't seem to be possible at first glance. Can this be done directly in Visual Studio? If not, are there any other options?

Edit: If not, is it possible to modify the shortcut programmatically using a custom installer class?

Answer 1

This is not supported by Windows Installer. Elevation is usually handled by the application through its manifest.

A solution is to create a wrapper (VBScript or EXE) which uses ShellExecute with runas verb to launch your application as an Administrator. Your shortcut can then point to this wrapper instead of the actual application.