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
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.
Hey,
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
Videos
Try this:
runas.exe /savecred /user:administrator "%sysdrive%\testScripts\testscript1.ps1"
It saves the password the first time and never asks again. Maybe when you change the administrator password you will be prompted again.
See this TechNet article: Runas command documentation
From a command prompt:
C:\> runas /user:<localmachinename>\administrator cmd
Or, if you're connected to a domain:
C:\> runas /user:<DomainName>\<AdministratorAccountName> cmd