With the existance of UAC in the windows world, I find my self looking for easier ways to run a command as administrator (usually via command line) without needing to turn off UAC.

Here are some useful links that helped me solve this very issue

Elevation Power Toys

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/2008.06.elevation.aspx  (note, you also need to sysinternals suite installed in "%ProgramFiles%\Sysinternal Suite"

Elevate Utility

http://code.kliu.org/misc/elevate/

Sudo for windows

http://sourceforge.net/projects/sudowin/

Looking for a way to format XML?

http://www.bytechaser.com/en/resources/tp9h7nivzr/free-online-xml-formatting-tool.aspx

-- some others 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/521265/any-online-xml-formatter-or-formatter-in-free-text-editor

http://www.shell-tools.net/index.php?op=xml_format

http://aaronkarp.com/prettyXML/

http://www.blogtechnika.com/how-to-send-any-application-to-system-tray-in-windows-7

Summary: StickOut is a desktop sticky note with multi-user support and Outlook integration. As a .NET Framework 2.0 Windows Forms application, it uses .NET Remoting to communicate with other StickOut users and exchange sticky notes with them. (85 pages)

Download the associated StickOut.msi code sample.

Original Article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480731.aspx

FreeCommanderis an easy-to-use alternative to the standard windows file manager. The program helps you with daily work in Windows. Here you can find all the necessary functions to manage your data stock. You can take FreeCommander anywhere - just copy the installation directory on a CD or USB-Stick - and you can even work with this program on a foreign computer.

FuturixImager is a compact and customizable image viewer. It is capable of opening more then 40 file types, including all most popular ones (GIF, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, JPEG2000, raw, DNG).

Texter saves you countless keystrokes by replacing abbreviations with commonly used phrases you define. Unlike software-specific text replacement features, Texter runs in the Windows system tray and works in any application you're typing in. Texter can also set return-to markers for your cursor and insert clipboard contents into your replacement text, in addition to more advanced keyboard macros.

Stickies is a PC utility was written to try to cut down on the number of yellow notes I was leaving stuck to my monitor. It is a computerised version of those notes. The design goal behind Stickies is that the program is small and simple. Stickies will not mess with your system files, or write to the registry. Stickies stores information in a single text-based ini file. 

ShellRunAs is a command-line tool call Runas that is handy for launching programs under different accounts, but it’s not convenient if you’re a heavy Explorer user. ShellRunas provides functionality similar to that of Runas to launch programs as a different user via a convenient shell context-menu entry. Read more..

Command Prompt Here tool