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:
Windows 7 handles this smoothly. See my start menu before the change:
After the change, the control panel option is missing:
XP is not as nice, it keeps the icon…but you get a nasty message when clicking on it:
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:
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.