See Chapter 9 for another way to automate changes to the
Registry from files.
Prevent Changes to a Registry Key
Security has always been one of Microsoft??™s favorite marketing buzzwords,
and never more so than when Windows Vista was introduced. But as it
turns out, Vista??™s security features are quite a bit more useful for protecting
your PC from itself than from any alleged intruders.
The permissions system covered in Chapter 8 doesn??™t just protect files and folders,
it restricts who can read and modify Registry entries. This feature is tremendously
important, yet most people don??™t even know it??™s there. It means
you can lock a Registry key to prevent employees from installing software on a
company PC, or prevent kids from disabling parental controls on a family PC.
114 | Chapter 3: The Registry
Permissions also let you lock file type associations (covered later in this chapter),
preventing other applications from changing them. And by locking certain
other keys, you can help protect your PC from viruses and spyware.
Here??™s how you do it:
1. Open the Registry Editor, and navigate to the key you want to protect.
You can??™t protect individual values, but rather only the keys
that contain them. This means that if you lock a key to protect
one of its values, none of its values can be modified. You
can, however, choose whether or not your changes are made
to the subkeys of the selected key.
2. Right-click the key, and select Permissions.
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