In experienced users should be discouraged from using the registry. In some cases, unless a person in dedicated to learning more about it, you may want to remove the ability for other users to use the Registry Editor. For example, if your computer is shared amongst multiple users, you can prevent the other users from being able to open the tool.

Disabling the Registry Editor for another user requires you to make a change to the registry as described in the following steps:

1. Log on as the user for which you want to disable the Registry Editor.
2. Click Start, click Run, and type regedit. Press Enter.
3. Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies.
4. Right click Policies, point to New, and click Key.
5. Type in System and press Enter.

   

6. Right click the System key, point to New and click DWORD Value.
7. Type DisableRegistryTools and press Enter.
8. Double click the new data type. Use a value of 1 to disable the registry editor.

   

9. Close the Registry Editor.

The next time the user logs onto the computer, they will be unable to use the registry editing tool.

You can also disable the registry editor for all users that log onto the computer by making similar changes to those described in the steps above. This time you will need to create the DWORD value called DisableRegistryTools under the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ System

Once again, after you create the DWORD value, open it up and change the value to 1. The steps below outline the exact process you need to follow.

1. Click Start, click Run, and type regedit. Press Enter.
2. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies.
3. Right click System, point to New, and click DWORD Value.
4. Type DisableRegistryTools and press Enter.
5. Double click the new data type. Use a value of 1 to disable the registry editor.

Set Registry Permissions through Group Policy
One of the ways in which you can protect your Windows registry is to configure permissions. You can do so by opening the registry and using the Permissions option. An alternate method is to set the registry permissions using Group Policy. Of course, this method assumes that your computer is a member of an Active Directory domain.

You can set registry permissions through a group policy using the steps outlined below.

1. Open the GPO you want to use for implementing registry permissions.
2. Expand Computer Configuration | Windows Settings | Security Settings | Registry.
3. Right click the Registry and select Add Key.
4. Locate the Registry key you want to configure permissions for. Select the Registry key and click OK.
5. Configure the appropriate permissions and click OK.
6. Make the appropriate selection from the Add Object dialog box and click OK.

Tags: regedit, registry trick, registry tip, registry hive, open key