How to hide your computer from My Network Places

Sometimes it can be useful to hide your computer from My Network Places on a companies network ;-)
You should take note that this means it is hidden, it is not inaccessible and if a person knows the exact name of your computer (NetBIOS name) and that you have unprotected shared folders then they will still be able to access them without problem.

Here is how you can hide your computer:

Click “Start”, “Run” and type “regedit”. You will then need to press “OK” to have the Windows Registry open.

Go to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver
\parameters

Add a new DWORD value called Hidden and give this a value of 1.

You can also download these reg files that can be used to hide and unhide your computer from the network.

Hidden	Unhidden

You will then need to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

Important Notes:

• Respect the uppercase H in Hidden when creating the key.

• Once the change has been done, even after rebooting your computer may still be visible. This is normal and it is simply because of the computer notifications on the network (this was put into place by Microsoft to allow people to discover the whole network). The time for this update to take place can be up to 50 minutes (!), so there is no need to worry as this trick will be functional and be due to Microsoft.