When
you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete while logged on to Windows 7, you see the
Windows Security window, which contains the following buttons, as shown
in Figure 1:
Lock This Computer—
Click this button to hide the desktop and display the Locked window. To
return to the desktop, you must enter your Windows 7 user account
password. This is useful if you’re going to leave Windows 7 unattended
and don’t want another person accessing the desktop. However, Windows 7
offers a faster way to lock the computer: Press Windows Logo+L.
Switch User— Click this button to switch to a different user account while also leaving your current user account running.
Log Off— Click this button to display the Welcome screen, which lets you log on using a different user account.
Change a Password— Click this button to display the Change Password window, which enables you to specify a new password for your account.
Start Task Manager— Click this button to open Task Manager.
Of
these five commands, all but Switch User are customizable using group
policies. So if you find that you never use one or more of those
commands, or (more likely) if you want to prevent a user from accessing
one or more of the commands, you can use group policies to remove them
from the Windows Security window. Here are the steps to follow:
1. | Open the Local Group Policy Editor window, as described earlier in this chapter.
|
2. | Open the User Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, Ctrl+Alt+Del Options branch.
|
3. | Double-click one of the following policies:
- Remove Change Password— You can use this policy to disable the Change a Password button in the Windows Security window.
- Remove Lock This Computer— You can use this policy to disable the Lock Computer button in the Windows Security window.
- Remove Task Manager— You can use this policy to disable the Start Task Manager button in the Windows Security window.
- Remove Logoff— You can use this policy to disable the Log Off button in the Windows Security window.
|
4. | In the policy dialog box that appears, click Enabled and then click OK.
|
5. | Repeat steps 3 and 4 to disable all the buttons you don’t need.
|
Figure 2 shows the Windows Security window with the four buttons removed.
To perform the same tweak using the Registry , open the Registry Editor and open the following key:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
Change the value of one or more of the following settings to 1:
DisableChangePassword
DisableLockWorkstation
DisableTaskMgr
To remove the Log Off button via the Registry, open the following key:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
Change the value of the NoLogoff setting to 1.
