Uninstall software non admin user (UAC rant)
Before you reply with the obvious answers, just want to tell you that they do not work either. shift+right click -> runas runas /user:domain\user appwiz.cpl I am very disappointed with UAC, a lot of emphasis was put on UAC with windows 7 as it being a great improvement over windows xp. This i think is completely incorrect. UAC in itself is completely useless and only annoys people and offers ZERO functionality. There is no privilege escalation built in to UAC it is just a prompt mechanism which is pointless. Holding down shift and right clicking to bring up the "run as another user" option is temperamental and sometimes on shortcuts and other things decides to not appear. Some control panel items do not have this function. Some functions like adding printers and copying files and deleting folders/files etc do not have any privilege escalation functionality available. Well my problem is that if i want to uninstall an application from a non admin account there is no way of loading the appwiz.cpl from another user account, i have tried all methods with no luck, i end up having to log in with a different user completely to uninstall software, which is a step backwards from windows xp. If i want to copy or move or delete or rename files and folders with a non admin account i have to load DOS (yes dos 15 year old dos) as another user and then do it all from there. The biggest problem with all this is that IT departments get so annoyed and tired of having no privledge escalation functionality within the OS that they end up giving domain users local admin privileges and disable UAC completely. Which is completely insecure. SO what needs to be done for windows 8 (or windows 7 + useless new ui on top of it resold for full price) is REAL privilege escalation functionality for non admin users. This means that every single little function and command and feature that does not work because of access rights should prompt the user for higher privileged login and password. Another thing that is completely useless regarding UAC is that install applications can not update without admin rights. There should be some sort of intelligence within the UAC that says, ok flash player is already installed and a trusted application so non admin users can run the auto updates ok. But no, we have to disable, java update (if that is even possible), adobe reader update, flash update as non admin users can not process the updates and then push out updates with group policy. Before you pipe on about SCCM, stick it.
August 17th, 2011 10:55am

Smith38, I know the frustrations you are experiencing. I have figured out a great work around to uninstalling application while a USER is logged in without logging them off. You need to install this great program called ccleaner. We will be using it primarily for the uninstall feature but the regirstry cleaner and temp internet/cookie cleaner is also kickass. go to filehippo [.] com and you will find it there also a quick google search will take you to it. Step 1: install ccleaner Step 2. shift right click ccleaner >runas domain admin step 3. click tools> uninstall app step 4. ???? step 5. Profit -enjoy!
Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
August 23rd, 2011 9:37am

Kind of a late response to this, but the reason "appwiz.cpl" doesn't run as different credentials is that it's running in/as explorer. In Windows 7, it's not possible to launch an additional instance of explorer.exe as a different user.
April 26th, 2012 3:26pm

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