Unable to hide the "Network Connections" icon using the "Hide specified Control Panel applets" Group Policy ?
Published : August 24, 2005Send your feedback
Symptom
When you add ncpa.cpl to the Hide specified Control Panel applets listing in the Group Policy editor, the Network Connections folder may remain visible when you open Control Panel. As a result, you may be unable to hide the Network Connections icon from the Control Panel.
Resolution
The Network Connections icon in the Control Panel represents a Shell folder, and the ncpa.cpl just launches the shell folder. One way to hide the Network Connections folder is to add the GUID {7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E} to the Non enumerate list (NonEnum) in the registry.
The NonEnum subkey contains entries that tell the system not to enumerate (display) components of the Windows interface. Group Policy creates and maintains these entries, and the interface programs read and interpret them. More information about the NonEnum can be found here.
Adding to NonEnum
- Start REGEDIT.EXE and navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ NonEnum
-or-
HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ NonEnum
- Select NonEnum, and in the right-pane, create a REG_DWORD value named {7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E} and set it's data to 1
- Close REGEDIT