Is it possible to prompt for a password when running certain apps? Notepad, or WinMine for instance.... doesn't really matter what program. Any program. Is it possible? How should I go about it?

I could watch foreground window captions until the condition is met, but I don't want to waste resources.

I could put my program in place of any shortcuts that would prompt for the password and run the app if necessary, but this won't protect the actual exe.

Anyone have better ideas about this?