How To Disable The Taskbar Properties Dialog Box

The Taskbar, that's been around since Windows 95, Is a utility located on the bottom of your computer screen. Among many other functionalities, you can combine/hide buttons, relocate It to the left, right or top of the screen, change the button size to small and the list goes on. This also means that other users sharing your PC, can do the same and mess up your configuration. As such, In this tutorial, I will show you how to disable the Taskbar Properties dialog box, thus help prevent access to the above features.


Before I begin, here's what I'm referring to. Right-click on a blank area on the Taskbar, select Properties and you'll see the settings as per the Image below.

If you have multiple users sharing your computer, It doesn't take too much effort to completely reorganize your current Implementations- Intentionally or otherwise. Rest assured, I will demonstrate how to prevent users from accessing the Taskbar Properties dialog box, by using the Group Policy Editor.

Do note that the GPE Is only available In Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise and Education editions. If you're running either of these, then this tutorial Is for you. So without further delay, let's get this started.

Step One:

To access the Group Policy Editor, open the Run menu, enter gpedit.msc and hit OK.

Step Two:

The Group Policy Editor will now open, so navigate to the following directory.

User Congiguration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar

Then on the right pane, double-click on Prevent changes to Taskbar and Start Menu Settings.

Step Three:

To the left of the window, select the Enabled radio button, and then hit OK to finalize the change.

Step Four:

The setting Immediately takes effect, without the need to reboot your system. Let's test It, by right-clicking on a blank area on the Taskbar and selecting Properties as shown below.

Last Step:

As you can see, an error message has been received saying that the operation has been cancelled. Perfect! The Taskbar Properties dialog box Is not functional.

Final Thoughts:

Unlike the Windows Registry Editor that's commonly used for tweaks of this nature, the good thing about this, Is that the majority of average PC users are unaware that the setting exists In the Group Policy Editor. And that's what makes this so effective.

To reverse the change, refer to Step Three above, by selecting the Not Configured radio button and clicking OK.