How to restore Control Panel and Printers in Win98 My Computer...

[jstolz]

Hmm... I guess my record-keeping wasn't as good as I thought. I eliminated Control Panel, Printers, Dial-Up Networking, and Scheduled Tasks from My Computer, and Control Panel and Printers from Start>Settings (actually, I eliminated Settings entirely)

It's easy enough to restore Dial-Up Networking and Scheduled Tasks by creating appropriate CLSID subkeys under HKLM/Software/MS/Win/CV/Explorer/MyComputer/Namespace, but somehow I can't get Control Panel and Printers back that way. In fact, I even created Control Panel and Printer system folders on the desktop (eg, by renaming a new folder to Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}). The trouble is that I can't drag it to My Computer... I can drag it just about anywhere EXCEPT my computer.

Any suggestions?

Regards...

[Fastway]

If you want to make restrictions to what users can do without having to
running Poledit, changes can be made directly to the registry.
This will allow you to make a REG file with the specific restrictions you want
and importing them all at once.
1.Start Regedit
2.Go to HKEY_Current_User\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersio n\Policies
3.There should already be at least a Explorer
4.Additional keys that can be created under Policies are System, Network
and WinOldApp
5.You can then add DWORD values set to 1 in the appropriate keys
6.In the Explorer key you can add:
NoLogOff
NoDeletePrinter - Disables Deletion of Printers
NoAddPrinter - Disables Addition of Printers
NoPrinterTabs - Disables setting in printers
NoRun - Disables Run Command
NoSetFolders - Removes Folders from Settings on Start Menu
NoSetTaskbar - Removes Taskbar from Settings on Start Menu
NoFind - Removes the Find Command
NoDrives - Hides Drives in My Computers
NoNetHood - Hides the Network Neighborhood
NoDesktop - Hides all items on the Desktop
NoClose - Disables Shutdown
NoSaveSettings - Don't save settings on exit
DisableRegistryTools - Disable Registry Editing Tools - NOTE: Be Careful of this one


I just cut and paste from my notes. I made a program in VB to do this kind of stuff!

[jstolz]

Yeah, I'm familiar with those tweaks, but the problem is I somehow hid Control Panel and Printers within My Computer, and I want to get them back. I do have them in cascading menus off my start menu, but the idea is to get them back into My Computer.

Regards...

[Fastway]

Sorry I should read better!

[jstolz]

Do I get a prize for answering my own question? Anyway, this is pretty cool so I figured I ought to share it.

My Computer displays the following system folders:
Control Panel, Printers, Dial-Up Networking, and Scheduled Tasks.

Each of these system folders require two conditions in order that they be displayed in My Computer:
1. Their CLSID must be entered as a subkey under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace, along with the default value set to the name of the system folder. Here's the CLSID numbers for each:
Control Panel {21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Printers {2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
Dial-Up Networking {992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48}
Scheduled Tasks {D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

2. Their respective CLSIDs under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{CLSID for system folder--see above} must contain a Subkey called ShellFolder which contains a binary (hex) value called "Attributes" set to 04,00,00,20.

What's interesting, is that if you omit 2. above, the folder shows up in the right pane of My Computer when My Computer is selected--but not in the left pane, and the right pane items can be selected but not executed. In fact, you get the correct context menu by right-clicking on them--even tho the "Attributes" subkey which controls what context menu items are displayed isn't created!

All this may be useful to those of you who may want to get rid of those special folders in Explorer/My Computer and access them via cascading menus off the start menu. To create these cascading start menu items, just create a new folder somewhere and rename it to one of the following:
Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
Printers.{2227A280-3AEA-1069-A2DE-08002B30309D}
Dial-Up Networking.{992CFFA0-F557-101A-88EC-00DD010CCC48}
Scheduled Tasks.{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}

Note that some folks report that DUN doesn't display any items under Win98. I'm not sure why that is.

Regards...