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You may want to restrict access to the control panel and only allow administrative access. This is a very good idea if your children use an account or if you set up a computer in an office for an employee. Learn how to disable the control panel in this guide.

This guide is included as part of the Windows Guides security and administration series. Please visit the main page if you would like to learn why this guide may be useful.

Please Note: This guide involves the use of the Group Policy Editor, which is not included with Vista Home Premium/Basic or Windows XP Home. If this is the first time you are using the Group Policy Editor, read this guide.

Unfortunately I do not know how to do this tweak using only the registry. If you know how, please contact me.

Disabling the Control Panel

  • Start Group Policy Editor (Start > Run > “gpedit.msc”)
  • In the left panel, go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel
  • In the right panel, enable Prohibit access to the control panel

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix them.

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Comments

17 thoughts on “Disable Control Panel Access in Windows Vista/XP”

  1. Windows Guides Security and Ad says:

    […] Disable Control Panel Access […]

  2. Larry Combs says:

    what if you don’t have gpedit.msc?

  3. Larry Combs says:

    what if you don’t have gpedit.msc?

  4. Larry Combs says:

    what if you don’t have gpedit.msc?

  5. Rich says:

    What version of Windows do you have?

  6. Rich says:

    What version of Windows do you have?

  7. Minwer says:

    its not working with me please help me to disable control panel !!

    i have windows vista home premium

  8. Minwer says:

    its not working with me please help me to disable control panel !!

    i have windows vista home premium

  9. Minwer says:

    its not working with me please help me to disable control panel !!

    i have windows vista home premium

  10. Rich says:

    Home Premium does not have the group policy editor so this is not possible using Group Policy.

  11. Rich says:

    Home Premium does not have the group policy editor so this is not possible using Group Policy.

  12. Rich says:

    Home Premium does not have the group policy editor so this is not possible using Group Policy.

  13. royive says:

    HELLO Rich,

    Please advise me, i want to block installing software for power users (as all are shared computers) even they cannot change adminstrator password through (My Computer: manage/ controluser passwords2),only adminsitrator (me) will have the privilege to do any kind of changes, kindly tell me about regedit process.

    Thanks
    Royive

  14. Rich says:

    I need more information. Please provide the following in the forums (http://forum.mintywhite.com):
    – What do you mean by power users? Do they just have standard accounts?
    – Do you want to block installation and uninstallation?

    Look forward to seeing you over at the forums.

  15. Rich says:

    I need more information. Please provide the following in the forums (http://forum.mintywhite.com):
    – What do you mean by power users? Do they just have standard accounts?
    – Do you want to block installation and uninstallation?

    Look forward to seeing you over at the forums.

Comments are closed.


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