I wrote a very simple command line app named elevate to start applications with the elevation prompt in Win7/Vista.

The function that starts it up is “ShellExecute” and the 2nd parameter is the one that tells windows to start it elevated.

// Launch the Application elevated
HINSTANCE hResult = ShellExecute(NULL, _T("runas"), argv[1], cmdLine, NULL, SW_SHOWNORMAL);

You can rename it to 'el.exe' and put it in a folder referenced by the PATH environment variable so that it can be launched from everywhere.

It forwards supplied parameters to the launched appliction.

Usage: 'elevate cmd' or 'elevate notepad c:\test.txt'.

Sourcecode and the compiled app can be downloaded below.