FREE: Elevation Gadget – Drag and drop to elevate programs

There are quite a few ways to elevate a program (run with administrator rights) under Vista and Windows 7. The sidebar widget Elevation Gadget is another option that can be helpful in some situations. You can place it on your desktop and drag applications or scripts on it that you want to run in elevated mode.

It is also possible to run multiple programs with admin privileges this way. You just have to select the corresponding icons and move them onto the Elevation Gadget. You can also type commands inside the widget to launch programs. The tool’s history buffer allows you to start previously launched programs.

I think, the Elevation Gadget is most useful if you have to fire up elevated scripts often. It is faster than through an elevated command prompt, because the gadget always sits on your desktop.

Unfortunately, one can’t drag text files onto the tool. For example, it would be nice if one could launch an elevated notepad with a text file from the Programs folder, by just dragging the text file to the Elevation Gadget. I still find it quite inconvenient that I can’t edit a file in these restricted folders by just double clicking on it. What is your solution to this problem?