I am normally logged into my laptop as a user with guest (downgraded) privileges. I want to escalate my privileges by using runas to run appwiz.cpl applet using my other admin account. how can I use my admin account to uninstall a program without having to switch user? normally you can runas .exe files as admin. But running these .cpl applets as admin never works.

You need to enable User Account Control. Inside Windows 7 User Account Control When UAC prompt pops-up, you need to enter the username/password of one of the administrator account of the system. Arthur Xie - MSFT