How to Prevent Users from Changing the Display Settings in Windows Vista

How to Prevent Users from Changing the Display Settings in Windows Vista

If you have multiple users on one computer, you might want to prevent them from changing the display settings. By following these steps, you can prevent all users on the computer from changing the screen resolution, refresh rate and color depth as well as the DPI size. This is also great for network admins who want to prevent users from changing these settings on their workstation.

1. Open Notepad.

2. Copy and paste the following into the new text document:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies
\System]
"NoDispSettingsPage"=dword:00000001
3. Save the document as display_settings_nochange.reg.

4. Merge the new file into the registry by right-clicking it, selecting Open With, and finally clicking Registry Editor.

5. Continue through the UAC prompt and confirm that you wish to perform the action.

If you need to restore this functionality, follow these steps:

1. Open Notepad.

2. Copy and paste the following into the new text document:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies
\System]
"NoDispSettingsPage"=dword:00000000
3. Save the document as display_settings_change.reg.

4. Merge the new file into the registry by right-clicking it, selecting Open With, and finally clicking Registry Editor.

5. Continue through the UAC prompt and confirm that you wish to perform the action.