Send to Notepad as Admin

As an administrator, how often do you open a config file located in a protected directory, like \Windows or \Program Files, edit it, then hit save and get this lovely message?

No I would not like to save in My Documents instead

There is a pretty easy workaround for this, however it will require you to think about how you open the file before you actually open it.

Type “shell:sendto” into an explorer address bar.

Type shell:sendto into the address bar

You will end up at “%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo”

%appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

Create a new shortcut to notepad in this folder pointing at “%windir%\system32\notepad.exe” (or your editor of choice)

Create shortcut pointing at %windir%\system32\notepad.exe

Call this shortcut “Notepad as Admin”

Once created, go into the shortcuts properties, go to the shortcut tab, click advanced… and tick “Run as administrator”.

Run as administrator

Now when you want to edit a file that your non-elevated user cannot edit, right click the file, choose send to, choose Notepad as Admin and UAC will kick in and elevate for you!

Send to Notepad as Admin