Disable Group Policy Windows 7
The reason why we might want to to control panel on a Windows computer or server is to minimize the risk of exposing the computer settings to anyone. As we all know, in control panel we can find almost every configuration and settings on our computer; such as User Accounts, System and Security, Programs and Features, etc. These are all settings that we don’t want somebody else to mess with.
Here's how: In the Local Group Policy Editor, select the User Configuration Administrative Templates Control Panel branch. Double-click the Show Only Specified Control Panel Items policy. Click the Enabled Option. Click the Show button to open the Show Contents dialog box.
For that purpose, Windows gives a way to restrict control panel access. On a managed domain, administrators usually disable control panel access using on Windows. How to Disable Control Panel Access using Group Policy on WindowsIn this article we are going to demonstrate the way to disable control panel access using Group Policy on Windows.
Disable Group Policy Windows 7 Home Premium
The steps by step below are performed on a Windows Server 2012 R2 as the Domain Controller and Windows 7 Ultimate as the targeted client computer where we want to disable its control panel. It is also assumed that the client computer has been joined to the domain.A user named “Arranda Saputra” is logged on to the client PC and is the subject for the policy enforcement. In the domain, this user is located under OU named “MustBeGeek” and this is where we will link the policy.Step by step:1.
Creating the Group Policy ObjectOn the Group Policy Management console, expand the forest and domain as usual, right click on Group Policy Objects and select “ New”Give name for the policy object, in this example we name it “ Block Control Panel”2. Editing the policy objectOnce the policy object has been created, it will appear on the policy object list. Right click that policy and select “ Edit”On the policy editor window, the setting that we’re looking for is under User Configuration Adminsitrative Templates Control Panel, find one setting named “ Prohibit access to Control Panel and PC settings”Double click the setting and then configure it as shown in the screenshot below.Click OK to save the setting and close the editor window.3.Applying the policy objectFind the target OU, in this example the target OU is “MustBeGeek”, right click on it and select “ Link an Existing GPO”Select the “Block Control Panel” GPO and click OK.
Verify that it is now appear under the “MustBeGeek” OU.4. Check the result on the client machineAs soon as the policy applied, this is what will happen on the client machine when trying to open control panel.The same prompt window will also appear when trying to modify a setting directly via the object icon, for example when trying to modify network setting by choosing “Open Network and Sharing Center” via LAN icon at the taskbar will also resulting the above prompt.PS: Policy will be applied naturally but remember we can always force the policy to be applied right away by issuing command gpupdate /force on command prompt. ConclusionDisabling control panel access means totally restrict the user from changing any computer settings, even the smallest one. The only way to open control panel or any of its configuration items is by logging in using another user account that is not impacted by the policy. Remember that you can always check policy being applied to a user account by using command gpresult /r on CMD.The best practice is not to apply this GPO to Administrator or Domain Admin accounts.
However, if you are sure that other users are not required to do anything on the control panel, then you can always disable control panel access using Group Policy on Windows.
Offline files in Windows are a set of features that essentially give users the ability to work with files off of or outside of the network. So for example if a user had a laptop that had a mapped drive or network share and were to take their computer outside of the network, the features offered by offline files would allow this user to continue working with these files. I will not cover the details of how all of this magic works in this post, I just want to show people the best way I found to disable this feature with the least amount of problems. If you want to go straight from the source, is the original article the gave me about 95% of the information necessary for accomplishing this task.The remainder of this post will detail my findings and experience from the link above. This feature (offline files) is enabled by default in Windows 7.
Of the benefits of offline files. However, for me personally as an admin, this feature so far has caused much confusion in the work environment for users that are not accustomed to having such a feature in our move towards Windows 7.These settings can of course be controlled on a per user basis by changing the settings and configuration of the “Sync Center” tool in Windows. But when you are involved in a larger environment and need this sort of process automated for many users, Group Policy becomes the most effective way to handle this problem.
There are a few steps to get offline folders disabled correctly so I thought I would share all the pieces in case somebody runs across a similar need as I did. The specific service we are looking for is the “ cscservice“, which corresponds to the service labeled “Offline Files” in the Windows services list.The last step to get this policy working correctly is to add in a registry key that will fix machines that have already been used to cache certain network resources. Essentially adding this registry key tell the machine to blow up its database of offline files and tells the machine to remove the cached files as well.
To configure this settings we need to add in a custom reg entry:Computer Configuration - Preferences - Windows Settings - RegistryKey: HKEYLOCALMACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetservicesCSCParametersValue name: FormatDatabaseValue type: DWORDValue data: 1with instructions on how change the registry settings by hand and a screenshot of my own GP environment with how the settings should look via the GP Management Console.That should be all the necessary changes that need to be made. If I missed anything let me know, hopefully this will save people time in the future.