Microsoft® Office 2003 Editions Resource Kit

Locking Down the Operating System

The Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft Windows XP operating systems allow administrators to set permissions-restricted access to the registry. Restricting access to the registry allows administrators to maintain the configuration of the computer so users won’t create confusion for other users by installing, modifying, or removing applications without the knowledge or permission of other users.

Administrators can lock the registry by using the regedit.exe or regedt32.exe utilities available with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Administrators can apply permissions-restricted access to the HKLM or HKCU nodes of the registry to block changes to these sections of the registry, thereby preventing users who do not have ...