Datasheet

82
PART I
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INSTALLATION, CONFIGURATION, AND CUSTOMIZATION
Figure 3.18. The Group Policy Editor is the industrial-strength Windows settings editor.
A cautionary note to the casual hacker: Sometimes the language in the GPE
uses double negatives, which means that “enabling” a setting doesn’t always do
what you think it might. For example, when you enable a Remove option, it
means you remove the object. If you select disable, that means the Remove item
will be present on the menu. Yes, it’s counterintuitive. Just get into the habit of
reading the GPE items and the explanations closely before making changes.
But you’re not done yet. The GPE has written the changes to the neces-
sary files but Windows hasn’t been told to apply them yet. You can do this in
two ways. You can log off and log back on again, or click Start, Run, type
cmd, and then click OK. In the command window, type gpupdate and press
Enter. This instructs Windows to read the local policies file and apply any
changes that have been made.
Additionally, if you browse around the Administrative Templates folder,
you will see that you can change a lot of settings related to Windows XP’s
basic operation. Browse to Control Panel\Display and you can hide many of
the options that have been covered in this chapter. Feel free to experiment,
but remember that it’s possible to lock down Windows so tightly that you
cannot gain access to any administrator tools, the GPE, or Regedit. There
are ways around this but they can be painful and complicated. The moral of
the story: Change only a few things at a time, and don’t be in a rush to make
your system impenetrable. You just may lock yourself out of your own house.
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