How To Prevent Certain Applications From Running

Also Read: How To Disable Access To The Windows Registry

Om many occasions it is extremely critical for a system administrator to be able to control which applications can be executed and which ones are blocked. There is a Windows Registry tweak that allows system administrators to do exactly that-prevent specific applications from running. The steps that one needs to follow in order to implement such a restrication are the following:

Step-1 Open the regedit.exe file.

Step-2 Search for, or create, the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Step-3 In the right panel, create a new DWORD value (within the above registry key) called DisallowRun and set its value to 1 to prevent application from running, and to 0 to enable all applications to run.

Also Read: How To Prevent Access To Certain Drives

Step-4 In the left panel, right click on the Explorer key and create a new key called DisallowRun.

Step-5 In the right panel of the key DisallowRun, for each application that you want to prevent from running, create a new String Entry named as consecutive numbers starting from the number 1. Set the data value of each new string entry as the filename that has to be blocked. For example, if you want to prevent Paint Brush from running, you need to set the data value of the string entry to “mspaint.exe”.

Step-6 Exit the Windows Registry. You might need to restart your Windows session for the change to be implemented. To enable all the applications to run again, simply delete all the changes you made to the Windows Registry.

Also Read: How To Add The Encrypt Decrypt Option To Files And Folders