You can use the runas command.
runas /user:Administrator "control appwiz.cpl"
It will prompt for a password then launch Add/Remove Programs with Administrator's credentials. There are other control panel applets you might need to launch this way as well.
You can also hold shift while right-clicking the applets and most of them allow you to choose "Run As".
Answer from Stephen Jennings on serverfault.comHey,
Seeing as non-administrators aren't allowed to uninstall programs, how would you 'run as' the programs & features applet?
Running appwiz.cpl from an elevated cmd prompt doesn't work. The only method that seemingly does it killing explorer.exe and running it again as an admin user, this breaks network drive mappings and causes other undesirable effects.
I could simply log the user off and log in with an admin account to uninstall the program, but this just seems so long winded.
Are there any other, easier solutions?
Thank You
Uninstalling a Program NOT Logged in As Admin
Can't uninstall programs as says need Administrator Rights
Add/remove programs without local admin? A.K.A Where is Run As different user for add/remove
How to run an uninstall program as an administrator?
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You can use the runas command.
runas /user:Administrator "control appwiz.cpl"
It will prompt for a password then launch Add/Remove Programs with Administrator's credentials. There are other control panel applets you might need to launch this way as well.
You can also hold shift while right-clicking the applets and most of them allow you to choose "Run As".
You can run it as Administrator using Powershell:
Start-Process "control.exe" -ArgumentList "appwiz.cpl" -Verb RunAs
Is there any particular reason you're trying to do this from the command-line as opposed to built-in features available in the UI? Also, might there be a system policy that's preventing you from performing these operations?
Here's a suggestion using the UI:
- Open the Start Menu
- In the Search Bar, type
appwiz.cpl. - Wait for
appwiz.cplto appear in the search results. There should be only one entry at the top, under "Programs". It should have a document icon with some gears on it, and should be automatically highlighted. - With
appwiz.cplhighlighted in the search results, press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER. This will force Windows to attempt executingappwiz.cplwith Administrator privileges. - Respond to any UAC prompts as appropriate.
If the above does not work, there may be an issue with your system's Security Policy. Do the following to check:
- Log into the system under an account that has Administrator permissions.
- Press Win+R.
- Type
secpol.mscand hit ENTER. - Respond to any UAC prompts as appropriate.
- In the left pane, navigate the tree to the following location:
Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options
- Find the "User Account Control" options, near the bottom of the list.
- Check the setting
User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for standard users- If it is set to
Automatically deny elevation requests, you will not be able to use Administrator permissions while running under a standard user account. - If this is set to any of the
Prompt for credentials...settings, and the above process for runningappwiz.cplelevated still does not work for you, then you may have a different problem.
- If it is set to
For whatever reason, the control panel applets inherit the privileges of the running Desktop shell (which is the Windows equivalent of a window manager). To escalate permissions in the control panel, you have to escalate permissions in this shell, via these steps:
- Open a command prompt as an administrative user
- Kill the running explorer process
- Ctl+Shift+Esc Open task manager, and navigate to the processes tab
- Find the
explorer.exeprocess(es), and kill all of them. (Right-click, chooseEnd Process) Your taskbar, desktop, and explorer windows will all disappear, but your command prompt will remain
- From that admin command prompt, run
explorer.exe - Now, you should be able to open
appwiz.cpl, or any other control panel applet with administrative privileges. - When you're done, kill the running explorer process(es), and run
explorer.exeas the logged-in user.
Caveat: This can lose certain settings, or break your normal desktop environment. For instance, any network paths which have been mounted to a drive will be lost.
Hi Margo,
Thank you for that information, the best option would be to try to uninstall that software with the widely available free version of Revo Uninstaller, some 3rd party software try to make it difficulty to uninstall their software and Revo is very good at removing software.
HI Dave,
- I don't have any school or work emails listed there, only mine as a Microsoft account.
- I have an access to netplwiz, where it says that my email has an administrator rights (please, see the screenshot attached, I hided my email but it is a correct one).
Thank you
Hello,
We are in the process of planning to remove local admins rights for windows 7 domain users from their desktops. So far so good, and we are getting to grips with installations using 'run as different user' and taking installs out of the login script. However, we cannot fathom out how to uninstall a program without having to log the user off, login with admin account, perform the uninstall and then log them back in again. Does anyone know of a way to do it from the same session? Ta.
Hi KRS Lego,
I am Dave, I will help you with this.
The installer on that game is corrupt, the best option is to sue the free version of Revo Uninstaller to uninstall the game, Revo is very good at removing even the most stubborn software that Windows cannot uninstall.
Thank you so much for this! Revo was able to find every trace of the game and delete it, and it no longer shows up in the programs list. Thank you!