Can anyone help me? I'm trying to disable access to the control panel for everyone who uses the computer apart from those in the administrators group. I have tried to set the option in using gpedit.msc and selecting the option "prohibit access to the control panel" set, but this disables it for everyone including all administrators. can anyone come up with a way around this, but not having to edit the registry, as it needs to be quite straight forward.

the only other way would be to use software based. On my laptop at work I use PC Security. You have to pay for it but it will lock anything you like. Junk Internet Explorer, Get Firefox! You'll be happy you did.

Another solution here http://malektips.com/xpwtw0004.html

you can do it via group policy editor within Windows

Of the three posts above... 1. If you are using XP Home other than XP Pro, you don't have gpedit to do it. 2. Re: Post 2: If the people who uses your computer are technically knowledgable, TweakUI will not stop them from accessing the CP from several different approaches, which leaves... 3. IMHO I think BuzzStPoint's suggestion is the one to go. i_XpUser

XPUser, just to point out, the op already said he had gpedit.msc. Andy, you could go to local security policy in the administrative tools in the control panel. Then go to software restriction policy and make a new path rule to C:\windows\system32\control.exe and set to disallow then go to enforcement properties and set to "all users except local administrators". If you want to disallow each individual applet do a search for *.cpl in windows\system32.