Jalaj P. Jha

Technical & Miscellaneous Ramblings

Tweaking Registry for Internet Explorer

with 36 comments

Behaviour of Internet Explorer can be modified by Registry Tweaks. Let’s take the Internet Settings first.

This is the dialog Box which opens when you select “Internet Options…” under “Tools” menu item in Internet Explorer or by Opening “Internet Options” from Control Panel.

Open Regedit and browse through to the key as below (or create if doesnot exist)

HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\\Software\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Control Panel

Creating a DWORD valuename (names as below) and setting its value to 1 will hide the corresponding Tabs in the Dialog Box

ValueName Description
GeneralTab Disable viewing the General page
SecurityTab Disable viewing the Security page
PrivacyTab Disable viewing the Privacy page
ContentTab Disable viewing the Content page
ConnectionsTab Disable viewing the Connections page
ProgramsTab Disable viewing the Programs page
AdvancedTab Disable viewing the Advanced page

To regain the original settings either set 0 for above valuenames or delete them.

The individual items under the above pages can also be restricted by creating a DWORD valuename (names as below) and setting its value to 1

ValueName Description
History Prevents users from changing the history settings for the browser.
Colors Prevents users from changing the default Web page colors.
Links Prevents users from changing the colors of links on Web pages.
Fonts Prevents users from changing font settings.
Languages Prevents users from changing language settings.
Accessibility Prevents users from changing accessibility settings.
Settings Disable changing any settings on the General page
HomePage Disable changing HomePage on the General page
Advanced Disable changing any settings on the Advanced page.

The menubar displayed on the browser window too can be modified. Browse to the key as below (or create if doesnot exist)

HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\\Software\\Policies\\Microsoft\\Internet Explorer\\Restrictions

Creating a DWORD valuename (names as below) and setting its value to 1 will hide the corresponding menu items

ValueName Description
NoBrowserSaveAs File menu: Disable Save As… menu option
NoFileNew File menu: Disable New menu option
NoFileOpen File menu: Disable Open menu option
NoBrowserClose File menu: Disable closing the browser and Explorer windows
NoViewSource View menu: Disable Source menu option
NoTheaterMode View menu: Disable Full Screen menu option
NoFavorites Hide Favorites menu
NoBrowserOptions Tools menu: Disable Internet Options… menu option
NoHelpItemTipOfTheDay Help menu: Remove ‘Tip of the Day’ menu option
NoHelpItemNetscapeHelp Help menu: Remove ‘For Netscape Users’ menu option
NoHelpItemTutorial Help menu: Remove ‘Tour’ menu option
NoHelpItemSendFeedback Help menu: Remove ‘Send Feedback’ menu option
NoBrowserContextMenu Disable Context menu (right click)
NoOpeninNewWnd Disable Open in New Window menu option
NoSelectDownloadDir Disable Save this program to disk option

The toolbar displayed on the browser window too can be modified. Browse to the key as below (or create if doesnot exist)

HKEY_CURRENT_USERS\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\Explorer


Create a DWORD valuename SpecifyDefaultButtons and set its value to 1. This has to be added once followed by tweaks as below.

Creating a DWORD valuename (names as below) and setting its value to 2 will hide the corresponding toolbar items. For showing the items, you will either require to change values to 1 or delete the valuename.

ValueName Description
Btn_Back Hide Back button
Btn_Forward Hide Forward button
Btn_Stop Hide Stop button
Btn_Refresh Hide Refresh button
Btn_Home Hide Home button
Btn_Search Hide Search button
Btn_History Hide History button
Btn_Favorites Hide Favorites button
Btn_Folders Hide Folders button
Btn_Fullscreen Hide Fullscreen button
Btn_Tools Hide Tools button
Btn_MailNews Hide Mail button
Btn_Size Hide size button
Btn_Print Hide Print button
Btn_Edit Hide Edit button
Btn_Discussions Hide Discussions button
Btn_Cut Hide Cut button
Btn_Copy Hide Copy button
Btn_Paste Hide Paste button
Btn_Encoding Hide Encoding button

Written by Jalaj

January 1st, 2007 at 7:18 am

Posted in Internet Explorer, Registry, Tweaking, Tweaking Registry

Tagged with

« The world is a small place
Can Registry be written by JavaScript »

36 Responses to 'Tweaking Registry for Internet Explorer'

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  1. I do in upper and i don’t hide copy button

    zofeus

    2 Mar 07 at 3:44 am

  2. Hi, I did as the instruction above, but it didn’t hide my print button at IE toolbar. Can you advise? It’s urgent. Thanks in advance!

    forest

    6 Mar 07 at 1:52 am

  3. Before tweaking registry for hiding toolbar buttons do as below.

    Create a DWORD valuename SpecifyDefaultButtons and set its value to 1.

    This missing step was preventing the tweak to perform well and I have also updated this on the post marked in Red

    Jalaj

    6 Mar 07 at 7:52 am

  4. Crystal clear! Thanks very much for sharing your wealth of knowledge.

    OMan

    2 May 07 at 2:40 pm

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  10. Hi,

    I would like to be able to prevent my IE history from being deleted. Can you tell me exactly how I would do this (Not understanding where the “DWORD” fits in). I would also appreciate it if you can tell me how to remove the reg edit and allow it to be deleted again.

    Roxanne

    8 Nov 07 at 12:39 pm

  11. Is there a way to disable Javascript using the registry

    Melvin Odell Tucker

    26 Nov 07 at 4:21 pm

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  13. Hi, you have told that to hide a history button create a dword btn_hostory, but where i have to create in regestry, please len me knwo

    srinivas

    23 Dec 07 at 7:32 am

  14. Hi, you have told that to hide a history button create a dword btn_hostory, but where i have to create in regestry, please len me know.

    srinivas

    23 Dec 07 at 7:35 am

  15. I have done as instructed above to hide IE toolbar buttons: specifydefaultbuttons = 1, btn_mailnews = 2. Doing this still does not remove the button from the toolbar. Is there anything else that could be preventing it from working. Thanks.

    aduar

    29 Jan 08 at 6:15 pm

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  18. I use firefox, so I don’t worry too much about this kind of thing. I do appreciate the time it took to put this together though, and it’s nice to see good registry tweaks.

    Winning Ponies

    8 Feb 08 at 9:17 pm

  19. Unfortunately Firefox do not have muck registry tweaks otherwise I would have liked to feature them too.

    Jalaj

    9 Feb 08 at 1:21 am

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  23. I am attempting to hide the History button in IE7, XP Home. However, in my registry I don’t have the HKEY_CURRENT_USERS, but instead the HKEY_CURRENT_USER. Assuming these may be the same thing, I modified as per your suggestion but it doesn’t seem to hide my button. Below is what my registry looks like. Am I doing this correctly? Is this something I can do with XP Home?

    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
    “NoDriveTypeAutoRun”=dword:00000091
    “SpecifyDefaultButtons”=dword:00000001
    “Btn_History”=dword:00000002

    Thank you kindly

    Chuck

    8 May 08 at 7:58 am

  24. This is a great post. I just tried out a bunch of these and they work. Indeed, the hive should be HKEY_CURRENT_USER without an S. Another thing noteworthy is that since the buttons settings are applied to Explorer and not Internet Explorer, it acts as a typical Microsoft product and is not updated right away until you at least log out of windows and then back in. Hope this helps.
    Thanks for the info,
    Jason

    Jason

    17 Aug 08 at 9:39 pm

  25. Thanks for the above information…..!

    Anil

    18 Aug 08 at 8:19 pm

  26. Thanks for the post.

    I have one question…

    Using IE, while downloading files, the dialog box shows Open, Save, Cancel right?

    When User clicks on “open”, the file gets downloaded into some “temp” folder. But I want to fix some other location for this (Maybe the same location that is fixed when user clicks on “save”)

    Somashekar

    20 Aug 08 at 2:49 pm

  27. Using mandatory profiles that get downloaded on each login. Which reg key will hide the ‘Edit with MS Word” button?

    James

    29 Aug 08 at 3:56 pm

  28. Is there a way to have IE go back to the home page when it has been idle for some specified minutes??

    James

    29 Aug 08 at 3:58 pm

  29. My bajrang computer education logo make bast and grade in india

    kamlesh

    25 Sep 08 at 2:39 pm

  30. This is great, i want to take few of the buttons from my IE, like Search, Print, Mail, etc…

    I will try this today and let you know if i get any errors.

    Tech Blog

    4 Nov 08 at 4:46 pm

  31. I am using windows xpe on a thin client with restricted access to a single account. So we make changes via local administrator. I want to change the proxy, but when I do it via local admin on the Hkey_current_user. The changes only work on the admin account and not the restricted accout. How do I make changes so it applies to all users?
    Thanks, Joe C.

    joec

    7 Jan 09 at 6:04 pm

  32. Hi,
    For the proxy to change for the PC, not the user, there is a policy to do that:
    1 – On the command prompt, type gpedit.msc.
    2 – Navigate to Computer Configuration –> Administrative Tools –> Windows Components –> Internet Explorer.
    4 – On the options on the right hand, Enable the forth option, which reads: Make proxy setting per- machine (rather than per-user).

    HTH
    Yba

    Yba

    22 Jan 09 at 1:47 pm

  33. Removing the “favorite center” from Internet Explorer 7

    Hi,
    It looks like you have a huge understanding of how all this registry-thing works. Perhaps you can help me with the thing in question.
    I would like to remove the two “Star-Buttons” from my IE7 browser.
    Somewhere on another site I saw a solution in the registry, however the solution do nothing for my browser.. the fav-stars are still there.
    I seriously hope you can help!

    Thanks for a great log,

    dingo

    9 Feb 09 at 1:48 am

  34. love the tweaking have customised my IE with the NoBrowserClose – is there anyway I can customise the Restriction error message that comes up

    Mandy

    9 Feb 09 at 5:04 am

  35. Does anyone know how to disable IE from automatically opening the Microsoft page that prompts me to upgrade to the latest IE version? It’s unwelcome and wastes my time whenever I log into one of my servers. We tend to be very careful about upgrading components early, taking a “wait and see” approach. We’ll upgrade when it’s warranted for security and/or stability but this kind of prompt is better suited to the home user than a data center.

    Thanks in advance.

    John Mattern

    9 Jul 09 at 4:17 pm

  36. Chuck, Explorer and IExplorer are two different apps. Make sure you are hacking the right keys in regedit.

    Walt

    12 Aug 09 at 12:26 pm

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