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You may not want users to have access to the right click menu. This can be useful when you don’t want people editing the start menu. There are workarounds for not having the right click button, but this will deter most users. In this guide you’ll learn how to disable right clicking in Windows.

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.

Disable right click for the Desktop, Files, Folders, and Windows Explorer

  • Start Group Policy Editor (Start > Run > “gpedit.msc”)
  • In the left panel, go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar
  • In the right panel, enable Remove access to the context menus for the taskbar

Disable right click for the Taskbar and the Start Menu

  • Start Group Policy Editor (Start > Run > “gpedit.msc”)
  • In the left panel, go to Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Explorer
  • In the right panel, enable Remove Windows Explorer’s default context menu

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

8 thoughts on “Disable Right Click in Windows Vista/XP”

  1. Windows Guides Security and Ad says:

    […] Disable Right Click […]

  2. Chris UK says:

    This doesn't prevent right clicking on the Toolbar. Does anyone have any ideas?

  3. Chris says:

    I’ll rephrase that my last comment!
    It does prevent right clicking on the Toolbar but doesn’t prevent right clicking on the toolbar icons. Does anyone know how to prevent right clicking on the toolbar icons (I.e A shortcut to an application or an open application on the toolbar.)
    Would really value anyone’s comments.
    The reason for this is because when an application is open you can right click on an application icon on the toolbar and then click on Close. I want to be able to prevent a user from closing the application and forcing them to close the application through the program itself. If a user is unable to close the application normally then they have as a last resort of end tasking the program through task manager.

  4. Juvann_13 says:

     thanks a lot dude!!1

  5. Michaelitol says:

    thanks a lot ..really…

  6. Ahmadreza says:

    Hello

    Help me to how to disable right click on the desktop for 2nd users and etc on windows xp please ?

    Thanks in advance

  7. Martin says:

    using regedit:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesExplorer

    -Right-click in the right panel

    -create a new 32-Bit DWORD value and name it NoViewContextMenu.

    -Giving it a value of 1 will disable context menu in File Explorer.

    -To re-enable context menu, give it a value 0 or delete NoViewContextMenu.

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