How to Disable Control Panel and Settings in Windows 11 (2 Ways)

Most Windows 11 PC users never need to disable the Settings app and Control Panel. For some reason, you can create a standard user account to let other persons use your PC. But sometimes you want to disable Control Panel and settings for specific users since you don’t want them to access the PC and make changes that could lead to an inoperable Windows.

Over the past few years, many options of Control Panel in Windows 10 are copied to its Settings app by Microsoft. Today, almost everything can be found in Settings although some items can only be tweaked in Control Panel.

Thus, if you need to limit user access in Windows 11, you need to disable both Control Panel and Settings. Well then, how to disable them? Get the answer from the following part.

Related article: How to Hide Control Panel Settings in Windows 10

How to Disable Access to Windows 11’s Settings App and Control Panel

The ways to disable Control Panel and Settings in Windows 11 for non-administrators are simple and there are two options for you – via Registry Editor and Local Group Policy Editor.

Restrict Access to Settings and Control Panel via Registry Editor

Step 1: Type regedit to the search box in Windows 11 and click the result to get Windows Registry Editor.

Step 2: Go to the path: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.

Step 3: Right-click the empty area and go to New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the new key to NoControlPanel. Double-click this item and set its value data to 1 to disable Control Panel and Settings. If you want to enable them, change the value data to 0.

Step 4: Also, go to the path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Create a new DWORD value called NoControlPanel and set the value data to 1.

Disable Control Panel and Settings in Windows 11 via Group Policy Editor

How to limit user access in Windows 11 via disabling Control Panel and Settings? Follow these steps below to change the settings of Group Policy Editor.

Step 1: Type Edit group policy to the search box in Windows 11 and click the exact result.

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Step 2: Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel.

Step 3: Go to find Prohibit access to Control Panel and PC settings from the right pane.

Step 4: Double-click on it and then choose Enabled in the new window. This can disable all Control Panel programs and the PC settings app. If you need to enable Windows 11 Control Panel and Settings, set this option to Disabled or Not Configured.

Step 5: Click Apply and OK to save the change.

Final Words

That’s all the information about how to disable access to Windows 11’s Settings app and Control Panel. Just choose one way to easily do this task.

After you disable Control Panel and Settings in Windows 11, if someone access Settings, it can flash quickly and close. And there is a message indicating the operation has been canceled due to restrictions in effect on this computer while accessing Control Panel.