Jalaj P. Jha Technical & Miscellaneous Ramblings

Tweaking Registry for Ctrl+Alt+Delete

I was more than surprised when today I found, on statistics dashboard, a referrer link that originated from microsoft.com domain. Following the link I found it to be from a Windows XP Newsgroups where a user had recommended my post Tweaking Registry for Internet Explorer. Incidently this post is the most viewed one on this blog with over 2240 views till now. This once again reminded me, after Asc() and Chr() in JavaScript, that what may seem trivial to you may mean much more to some one else. So starting with this post I would be posting a series on Tweaking Registry. Hope you find the information provided here useful.

On systems with Windows 2000 onwards clicking the Ctrl + Alt + Delete combinations will present you with a window allowing you to Lock Workstation, Change Password, open Task Manager etc. on click of relevant buttons. Using registry Tweaks you can disable one or more of these buttons.

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

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

Creating a DWORD valuename (names as below) and setting its value to 1 will disable corresponding buttons and thus presvent user from carrying out the task.

These settings can be enforsed on User level by creating the above dwords in a key as below

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

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

statutory warning : Tweaking registry in irresposible Manner can damage your system settings and can stop your operating system to function properly or stop the functioning. Perform tweaking only if you are sure of what you are doing

Related Links :

• Tweaking Registry for Internet Explorer
• Tweaking Registry Series