Hide access to the Administration Tools in the Windows Start Menu

In the Windows XP operating system, it is possible to access the Administration Tools from the Start Manu. If you believe that only you, for security reasons, should be able to access these and no other users on the computer should be able to run them then it is possible to hide the folder so that not just anyone can access these tools.

Start the Windows XP registry editor by pressing “Start”, select “Run” and type regedit in the field. Then press OK.

Once you have the editor open, go to the following location:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Select the “Advanced” in the left hand side and then right click in the right hand window which will bring up a drop down menu. Select “New” and “Chain Value”.

A new entry will be created. You will now need to change its name and value. To change the name you can right click on it and select “Rename” from the drop down menu. To change the value you will need to select “Edit” from this same drop down menu. You will need to name this new key “StartMenuAdminTools” and give this a value of “no”. This will hide the Administration Tools from the start menu. If you want to display them again you simply need to return to the same key and change the value to “yes”.

If you don’t want to change the registry manually for fear of making a mistake, you can download these files which will perform the change for you.


Hide the Administration Tools from the Start Menu
Display the Administration Tools in the Start Menu