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Remotely Disable Control Panel Access

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by Steve Wiseman on July 30, 2010 · 0 comments

in Network Administrator,Network Administrator Updates,Tips,Tools,Windows,Windows 7,Windows XP


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I got a question from Mark last week:

“Steve, I was wondering if you could add a plugin to Network Administrator that would disable control panel access. I know it is not the best way to keep people out, but it would save me a lot of headaches”

Actually, I have gotten a few requests for this. Disabling control panel access is actually quite easy. If you drill down to this registry key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

You just need to add a DWORD value of NoControlPanel, and set it to 1:

Registry View

Windows 7 handles this smoothly. See my start menu before the change:

Windows 7 Before Change

After the change, the control panel option is missing:

Windows 7 Before Change

XP is not as nice, it keeps the icon…but you get a nasty message when clicking on it:

Windows XP No Control Panel

We added a plugin to Network Administrator. That way you can easily make the change without plunking around in the registry, plus you can push it remotely against machines on your network:

Network Administrator Disable Control Panel Plugin

You can get your free download from here:

http://www.intelliadmin.com/NetworkAdministrator.exe

Disabling the control panel won’t keep everyone out, but in some situations it can really help.

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