It's a far from ideal solution, but it's considerably more secure than what you're doing.
Get a couple copies of a program such as VMWare or really any x86 emulation program will do if it can run Windows. Install a second copy of Windows using VMWare, and then install the apps necessary under VMWare. Then you can set a completely different admin password while still allowing the people to run these programs.
Or possibly they could use Remote Desktop/VNC to remotely use another system that is logged in using an account with the necessary access that is otherwise isolated.
Both are rather ugly solutions, and it'll require a little more work on your part, but I'd still say it's better than handing out the admin password to the average network user. Because you just know one or two of them will turn cowboy and abuse that. It also buys you a little more time to try and find an alternate solution (although with Windows, good luck).
I am having problems with certain programs in my domain. Some of my computers need to run programs, but these programs for one odd reason or another cannot be run by anyone other than an administrator. I've gone into local security policy settings, software restriction policies, created a new policy, and created a new rule explicitly giving unrestricted access to the programs in question. This solved one of the programs, but the other two STILL won't run without an administrator. I'm trying desperately to maintain the integrity of my network, and I don't want to give away admin privs to anyone who explicitly doesn't need them, but Windows XP keeps forcing me to do so, as certain users wouldn't be able to do things they need to do on their current workstations otherwise. Any suggestions?

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