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This is one of the great features why Windows XP remains powerful. Having to administer more than 100 computers, I find this trick useful to keep the computers in good shape. This will also apply to office environment wherein you need to restrict certain applications on a user based policy. Let's just say on a particular PC there are 2 users but the 2 of them have different access rights to all of the programs installed. Each user should only be able to access certain applications they are allowed to. For example: user 1 is an administrator and should have full access to all programs installed. But user 2 only needs to use the MS Office applications. Any other applications like Internet Explorer, Messenger and others should be restricted.  This particular setup is possible with Windows Registry.

But before we proceed with Registry tweaking, make sure that the two user login are created and active.
 
How to do it using Registry.
1. Login to the user where to apply the restrictions. Open Windows Registry and go to this key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\]
2. Right-click on the Explorer key and create a new DWORD value named "DisallowRun".

3. Double-click on the new key and then enter "1" to the Value Data.
4. Go to this key: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\]
5. Right click the Explorer key and  create a new key named "RestrictRun".
6. Right-click the RestrictRun key and create a new String Value named "1".
7. Double-click the created String Value "1" and then enter the program executable to restrict. e.g. for Yahoo Messenger enter "YahooMessenger.exe".
8. If you want to restrict another program let's say Paint Brush, create another String Value by incrementing 1 to the next number which is "2" and then enter "pbrush.exe".
9. Just increment the last String Value for the next program you want to restrict and verify it's program executable to its installed folder located at c:\Program Files\

This trick also applies to Windows 7. Happy Tweaking!

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