Lockdown Windows Explorer; Remove Open a

YES! the registry can be your enemy but it can also be your friend. there is a way to batch the removal process, but i can't remember it (it requires using an inf file). this is where default images come into play, obviously. but, to get to the answer, zip into the registry using your favorite reg editor, goto the HKEY_CLASSES/folder and delete the explore and open under shell. please note, however, that you can no longer goto run and type in a drive letter anymore when you do this. it just goes, "uh duh, huh?" (*not the response) and gives you an error msg

so i guess now you hafta figure out how to setup the inf file, eh? well, most users cant install devices/programs, so they cannot add inf files. so guess what. you get to doit on your own. hopefully you don't have many workstations. remem regedt32 lets you work on theirs from your machine. good luck :)

have you tried the program poledit? this program i thinkis on w9x cd or you can go to microsoft and search for this utility. this will allow you to lock down the desktop pretty well. i dont rember if it does what you need it to do but its very efficeint. it even fits on a floppy so you can take it to pc t pc. if you cant find it i can email it to u

bill

Part I
This is hard and not safe... I met such kind of problem in computer club - we had need to limit access only to some games. After some thinking and playing with policies we used our own shell instead of explorer. regarding your question - every file has extension - 3 characters after point. using this you can find associated commands. But could be hundreds of registered extensions in your registry, you might think about writing some application to do this automatically.
Basic process: Look into HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.htm for *.htm. Here you'll see "(Default)" value with type name. In my case this is "htmlfile". Open HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\htmlfile\shell\ - this is context-menu commands. You can delete those keys. Don't forget to backup registry before! :)
For folders this commands list is in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\.
After you delete open command you won't be able to open Excel file just by clicking on it, for example. you'll have to load Excel and open file from it.
And last thing- there are unregistered extensions - for them you can see "Open with..." with list of available applications. To disable them you need to add "NoOpenWith" value to all registered applications. It can be string with empty data. Look into HKEY_CURRENT_ROOT\Applications - here should be list of some executables, i.e. Notepad.exe. You'll need to add here NoOpenWith value for every registered executable. Or you can lsit those applications separated by ; in string value KillList of key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileAssociation.

Hmm... Max limit is near - see continue in next message.

Part II:

Heh... not easy task you choosed to do...
it may be easier to enable running of only some applications in policy editor. Open Registry, choose [Local User -> Windows 98 System -> Restrictions -> Only run allowed Windows applications] and here you configure list of available applications. Backup your registry before! :) If you restrict access to tight you'll have to boot in DOS and restore registry.

For WinNT/2000 situation is little easier - if you have NTFS you can restrict user rights to open folders/programs.

Sincerely, Sergey
Brainbench MVP for Win98 Administration