There are several ways to disable unnecessary Control Panel applets on Windows. The first is to manually open the Control Panel and locate the applet that you want to disable. Then click on the “Disable” or “Disable All” button in the applet to disable it.
Alternatively, you can use the Group Policy Editor. This tool allows you to set restrictions for the Control Panel and its applets through a group policy setting. To access the Group Policy Editor, go to Start > Run, type gpedit.msc and press enter. Navigate to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel, and double-click the “Disable Control Panel” policy. Now select either “Disable All Control Panel Items” or “Enable Only Specific Control Panel Items”. Selecting the latter will give you a list of all the applets you can enable and disable.
If you don’t have access to the Group Policy Editor, you can make use of the Command Prompt. In the Command Prompt window, enter the command “reg add HKLM \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Policies \Explorer /v NoControlPanel /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f” and press enter to disable the entire Control Panel. If you want to disable only certain applets, you can use the command “reg add HKLM \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Windows \CurrentVersion \Policies \Explorer \ControlPanel /v
Finally, you can use the Windows Registry Editor. Accessing this involves some risk, as incorrect values can seriously damage your system, so it is not recommended unless you are confident that you know what you are doing. To open the Registry Editor, go to Start > Run, type regedit and press enter. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer and create a new DWORD value called “NoControlPanel”, making sure to set its value to 1. This will disable the entire Control Panel applet. If you want to disable only certain applets, look for the “ControlPanel” folder in the same location and delete the relevant applet from there.
In summary, to disable unneeded Control Panel applets you can use either the manual method, the Group Policy Editor, the Command Prompt, or the Windows Registry Editor. Be aware that editing the registry may cause serious damage to your system, so it is best to use the other methods unless you are an experienced user.