Unable to change properties of taskbar/start menu

[Cah]

Hello, a long time ago I fiddled with registry settings of an account with admin privileges in an attempt to limit some user actions. One of them included disabling right-click on the task bar and selecting properties. A message telling the user to contact the administrator comes up when it is tried. I've now completely removed the account and have created a new one. I've just discovered that every account on the machine has the right-click select properties disabled for the task bar and the start menu. How can I fix this? The situation is complicated because the computer has no Group Policy Editor (it's home not professional).

Thanks,

Chris

[StuartR]

According to this post, you can do this by

Adding a DWORD value called NoSetTaskbar with a value of 1 to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

To restore the former behaviour you change the value from 1 to 0

[Cah]

Hi Stuart,

Yes, I tried that before posting. I didn't have that DWord and right-click was disabled as I described. I created it and regardless of the value it has had no effect. It's possible I did this for the account I deleted and forgot about it. Do you know if changes made to the registry in HKEY_CURRENT_USER are maintained once the user account is deleted?

Cheers,

Chris

[HansV]

Do you know if changes made to the registry in HKEY_CURRENT_USER are maintained once the user account is deleted?

No, HKEY_CURRENT_USER is an alias for the subkey in HKEY_USERS that corresponds to the active account. If you delete that account, the corresponding subkey of HKEY_USERS is deleted.

[StuartR]

Can you search the registry for NoSetTaskBar and see if there is an equivalent key in any of the other hives.

[Cah]

Thanks Stuart, that did the trick.

Chris