If you are running a public machine or many people use your PC you may want to stop anyone from accessing the control panel where they could change settings etc.

I know of people who have had trouble in the past with ‘idiots’ changing all sorts of settings on the computers at places like libraries and were rather happy when I gave them this tweak.

To restrict control panel access just do this registry edit (remember to backup first);

  • Open regedit
  • Navigate to these locations
    • HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
    • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Policies\Explorer
  • Create a new DWORD value
    • NoControlPanel
  • Set the value to 0
  • Close regedit
  • Reboot
  • You should find the control panel can no longer be accessed