Yes, it will work to run the exe as a normal user (as long as you don't specifically program anything into your program that requires elevation...). The reason you must elevate Visual Studio is because the ldr64.exe program called by the pre and post build steps requires elevation.
For future reference, and for anyone else who may run into this issue, the steps to resolve this issue are carefully laid out in the help topic "Protecting Your Project from LC0000 Build Error".
NickB
National Instruments
