Many times, it’s not desired to allow user access to a computer’s control panel. Whether this is a shared personal computer or a computer that will be used in a public place (where many people, including pranksters, might be using the machine) disabling the control panel can be a good idea. The good news it’s a simple task.
Disable Control Panel with Group Policy
Note: This article centers around the use of the Local Group Policy Editor. The Local Group Policy Editor is not available in Home versions of Windows 7. Don’t worry, because we also include a registry fix for Windows 7 Home to accomplish the same task later in this article.
Let’s get started!
Type gpedit.msc into the Search box in the Start menu and hit Enter (Click Start –> type gpedit.msc into the search/run box and press enter).
Once the Local Group Policy Editor opens, navigate to User Configuration \ Administrative Templates then select Control Panel in the left Column. In the right column double-click on Prohibit access to the Control Panel.
In the next window, select Enable, click OK, then close out of Local Group Policy Editor.
After the Control Panel is disabled, click on the Start menu button. You should no longer see control panel listed! It’s really that simple!
If the user tries to type Control Panel into the Search/Run box in the Start menu, they will get the following error message indicating that access is restricted.
Disable Control Panel with a Registry Tweak
As mentioned at the beginning of this article, you can also use a registry fix to hide the Control Panel. This registry fix will work with all versions of Windows, including Windows 7 Home, Windows Vista, and Windows XP. We highly recommend you make a restore point before modifying the registry.
Type regedit.exe into the Search box in the Start menu and hit Enter (Click Start –> in the Run/Search box type regedit.exe and press enter).
In the Registry Editor navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer. Right-click in the right pane and create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value.
Name the value NoControlPanel. Right-click on the newly created Value and click Modify.
In the Value data field change the value to “1” (the number one) then click OK. Close the Registry Editor. You will need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.
After you’ve rebooted, you should no longer see Control Panel listed in the Start menu.
If a user tries to access it using a workaround, such as by typing Control Panel into the Search box in the Start menu…
Windows will respond with the following message indicating access is restricted, just like if you were to disable it via the Group Policy Editor.
If you want to re-enable the Control Panel, go back into the Registry and change the NoControlPanel value back to “0” then reboot the computer.
This comes in handy if you have inexperienced users working on your machine and don’t want them messing with Control Panel settings, or if the computer is in a public area where some prankster might change settings on your intended users. It’s a simple fix and works well!
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