How to hide Control Panel settings on Windows 10

Although the Windows 10 Settings app is positioned as the primary experience to configure and personalize your device, Control Panel still available with a lot of settings — many of which you probably don’t want users to change.

If you share your computer with other people, or you work as an IT administrator for an organization, there will be times when you may not want users to have full access to Control Panel, as this usually results in unwanted configurations. You could restrict total access to both, Control Panel and Settings, but if that isn’t an ideal solution, on Windows 10, it’s possible to use the Local Group Policy Editor and the Registry to hide only those settings you don’t want users to change.

You can also restrict access to pages in the Settings app, but to do that, you need to follow these instructions instead.

In this Windows 10 guide, we’ll walk you through the steps to hide Control Panel settings you don’t want users to mess with.

How to hide Control Panel settings using Group Policy

On Windows 10 Pro (or Enterprise), the most convenient way to hide specific settings on Control Panel is by using the Local Group Policy Editor.

To restrict users access to Control Panel settings using Group Policy, do the following:

1. Use the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to open the Run command.
2. Type gpedit.msc and click OK to open the Local Group Policy Editor.

Browse the following path:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel

On the right side, double-click the Hide specified Control Panel items policy.

Under «Options,» click the Show button.

Type the name of the items you don’t want Control Panel to show. For example, Windows Firewall.

• Important: You must specify one item per line.

Click OK.

Click Apply.

Click OK.

After completing these steps, close the Local Group Policy Editor and open Control Panel. If you’ve configured the policy correctly, you should now only see the specified items.

The only caveat while configuring settings visibility on Control Panel is that you need to know the exact name of each item you want to hide from users beforehand. However, we did the hard work, so you don’t have to — click here to see the list.

You can always revert the changes by following the same instructions, but on step No. 5, make sure to select the Not Configured option.

The other way using Group Policy

Alternatively, you can configure another policy to show only specific items while hiding the rest, which is a quicker option if you’re trying to hide a lot of settings.

To show only specific settings on Control Panel using Group Policy, do the following:

1. Use the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to open the Run command.
2. Type gpedit.msc and click OK to open the Local Group Policy Editor.

Browse the following path:

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel

On the right side, double-click the Show specified Control Panel items policy.

Under «Options,» click the Show button.

Type the name of the items you want Control Panel to show. For example, Windows Firewall.

• Important: You must specify one item per line.

Click OK.

Click Apply.

Click OK.

How to hide Control Panel settings using Registry

In the case you’re running Windows 10 Home, you won’t have access to the Local Group Policy Editor, but you can still hide specific settings on Control Panel by modifying the Registry.

Warning: This is a friendly reminder that editing the registry is risky, and it can cause irreversible damage to your installation if you don’t do it correctly. It’s recommended to make a full backup of your PC before proceeding.

To restrict users access to Control Panel settings using the Registry, do the following:

1. Use the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to open the Run command.
2. Type regedit, and click OK to open the Registry.

Browse the following path:

Right-click on the right side, select New, and then click on DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Double-click the newly created DWORD and set the value from 0 to 1.

On the left side, right-click the Explorer (folder) key, select New, and then click on Key.

Inside the DisallowCPL (folder) key, right-click on the right side, select New, and then click on String Value.

Double-click the newly created String, type the exact name of the Control Panel item you want to hide (e.g., Network and Sharing Center), and click OK.

Once you completed the steps, repeat steps No. 9, 10, and 11 to list all the items you don’t want users to see in the Control Panel.

The only issue when trying to configure settings visibility on Control Panel is that you need to know the exact name of the items you want to remove. However, we did the hard work, so you don’t have to — click here to see the list.

The other way using Registry

Alternatively, you can configure another policy using the Registry to specify only the items you want to make available while hiding the rest, which is a quicker option if you’re trying to hide a lot of settings.

To show only specific settings on Control Panel using the Registry, do the following:

1. Use the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to open the Run command.
2. Type regedit, and click OK to open the Registry.

Browse the following path:

Right-click on the right side, select New, and then click on DWORD (32-bit) Value.

Double-click the newly created DWORD and set the value from 0 to 1.

On the left side, right-click the Explorer (folder) key, select New, and then click on Key.

Inside the RestrictCPL (folder) key, right-click on the right side, select New, and then click on String Value.

Double-click the newly created String, type the exact name of the Control Panel setting you want to show (e.g., Network and Sharing Center), and click OK.

After completing the steps, repeat steps No. 9, 10, and 11 to specify the items you want users to see in Control Panel.

If you want to restore the old settings making all the Control Panel items available, simply browse the Explorer (folder) key as shown on step No. 3, right-click the DisallowCPL or RestrictCPL (folder) key, and click Delete. Then inside the Explorer key, make sure to right-click the DisallowCPL or RestrictCPL DWORD, and click Delete to restore the previous configuration.

List of Control Panel settings

Below you’ll find the list of all the settings names on Control Panel included with the Windows 10 Creators Update. It should also be noted that the list may be slightly different depending on the version of Windows you’re using, as Microsoft continues to migrate Control Panel settings to the Settings app.

Quick Tip: You can easily find out the name of the items you can hide by opening Control Panel, and selecting Large icons from the View by drop-down menu located in the top-right.

• Administrative Tools
• Backup and Restore (Windows 7)
• BitLocker Drive Encryption
• Color Management
• Credential Manager
• Date and Time
• Default Programs
• Device Manage
• Devices and Printers
• Ease of Access Center
• File Explorer Options
• File History
• Fonts
• HomeGroup
• Indexing Options
• Infrared
• Internet Options
• Keyboard
• Language
• Mouse
• Network and Sharing Center
• Pen and Touch
• Phone and Modem
• Power Options
• Programs and Features
• Recovery
• Region
• RemoteApp and Desktop Connections
• Security and Maintenance
• Sound
• Speech Recognition
• Storage Spaces
• Sync Center
• System
• Tablet PC Settings
• Taskbar and Navigation
• Troubleshooting
• User Accounts
• Windows Firewall
• Windows To Go
• Work Folders

While we’re focusing this guide on Windows 10, these instructions will also work to prevent Windows 8.x and Windows 7 users from changing specific settings in Control Panel.

More Windows 10 resources

For more help articles, coverage, and answers to common questions about Windows 10, visit the following resources:

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How To Hide Settings Pages in Windows 10

Yet another feature of Windows 10 Creators Update is the ability to hide certain pages of the Settings app. To hide Settings pages, Windows 10 offers a new Group Policy which can be configured using gpedit.msc or Registry. Here is how it can be done.

Settings app has a set of pages with options organized in several categories. As of this writing, the following categories are available:

• System
• Devices
• Network & Internet
• Personalization
• Apps
• Accounts
• Time & language
• Gaming
• Ease of Access
• Privacy
• Update & security
• Mixed reality

With the help of a new Group Policy option, it is possible to hide or show some pages from the Settings app’s categories.

To hide Settings pages in Windows 10, do the following.

1. Refer to the list of ms-settings commands available in Windows 10 Creators Update. It is here: ms-settings Commands in Windows 10 Creators Update
   Note the commands for the pages that you need to hide.
2. For pages you are going hide, get the portion of the command without «ms-settings:». For example, for the command ms-settings:tabletmode you need only the «tabletmode» portion. For «ms-settings:about», use just «about».
3. Press Win + R keys together on your keyboard and type:

Press Enter.

Group Policy Editor will open. Go to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel.

There, you will find the option named Settings Page Visibility. It is a new option in Windows 10 Creators Update. Its description states the following.

Specifies the list of pages to show or hide from the System Settings app.

This policy allows an administrator to block a given set of pages from the System Settings app. Blocked pages will not be visible in the app, and if all pages in a category are blocked the category will be hidden as well. Direct navigation to a blocked page via URI, context menu in Explorer or other means will result in the front page of Settings being shown instead.

This policy has two modes: it can either specify a list of settings pages to show or a list of pages to hide. To specify a list of pages to show, the policy string must begin with «showonly:» (without quotes), and to specify a list of pages to hide, it must begin with «hide:». If a page in a showonly list would normally be hidden for other reasons (such as a missing hardware device), this policy will not force that page to appear. After this, the policy string must contain a semicolon-delimited list of settings page identifiers. The identifier for any given settings page is the published URI for that page, minus the «ms-settings:» protocol part.

Example: to specify that only About and Bluetooth pages should be shown (their respective URIs are ms-settings:about and ms-settings:bluetooth) and all other pages hidden:

Example: to specify that only the Bluetooth page (which has URI ms-settings:bluetooth) should be hidden:

From the description, you can see that this policy works like a white list for pages or like a black list to hide specific pages. You can configure it either way. For example, let’s hide the pages that I mentioned earlier, ms-settings:about and ms-settings:tabletmode.

Double click the Settings Page Visibility option. Set it to «enabled».

In the text box, type the following:

You can use URI parts of pages you need to hide instead.
Click Apply and OK to close the option.

That’s it. In my case, «About» and «Tablet Mode» pages will disappear.

Before:

After:

Now, let’s test the option in white list mode. Let’s set it to showonly:about;tabletmode.

The result will be as follows: All other pages and also their categories will be hidden. The only visible category will be System with just the two settings pages that we allowed in Group policy.

For Windows 10 editions without the Group Policy editor app, it is possible to apply a Registry tweak. Here is how.

Hide pages in Settings in Windows 10 with a Registry tweak

1. Open Registry Editor.
2. Go to the following Registry key:

Tip: How to jump to the desired Registry key with one click.
If you have no such key, then just create it yourself.

In the right pane, create or modify the string value named SettingsPageVisibility. Set its value data to one of the following values:
hide:pageURI;pageURI;pageURI — to hide certain pages.
showonly:pageURI;pageURI;pageURI — to show only the pages you want.

See the following screenshot.

Do not forget to reopen the Settings app to apply the changes.
That’s it.

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About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

8 thoughts on “ How To Hide Settings Pages in Windows 10 ”

When will this be in Windows Server 2016?

It’s not a system setting, it would be much better if you can disable this only for normal users and let Administrators see all the setting pages….

Can to remove the Search bar from these screens?

I think there must a group policy for that. I need to check it.

Добрый вечер, Сергей. Мне не удавалось скрыть вкладку “Конфиденциальность”. Причём, на последней версии 18.0.0 Удалялись все пункты в этой вкладке, кроме двух. Решил я эту проблему, доюавив в реестр privacy-videos;privacy-general
https://ibb.co/HF5NzTp

а вот результат
https://ibb.co/V9LKXFN
РОУД ТУ ЗЕ ДРИМ!

А ещё, у вас всё-таки получилось скрыть строку поиска в “параметрах”?

Здравствуйте, Сергей. Программа скрывает “Конфиденциальность” не до конца, остаются две вкладки: “Видео” и “Общие”. Чтобы решить это, я добавил в реестр privacy-videos;privacy-general и всё получилось. Сижу на Windows 10 1809 Корпоративная LTSC. Добавьте в следующей версии, может, кому-нибудь пригодится