How to DISABLE WINDOWS HELP!?

[Alex]

Windows help has a million backdoors to things that we are
trying to prevent people from running...ex: games, ie,
network config, etc. Does anybody know an easy way
(preferrably through GPO's) to disable windows help? i've
tried disallowing winhlp32.exe, but it it opens
explore.exe instead. Strange stuff. Thanks in advance.

 

[Pete Lees]

Alex,

Windows help has a million backdoors to things that we are
trying to prevent people from running...ex: games, ie,
network config, etc. Does anybody know an easy way
(preferrably through GPO's) to disable windows help? i've
tried disallowing winhlp32.exe, but it it opens
explore.exe instead.

The executable for compiled HTML Help (.chm) files is \windows\hh.exe.
As I understand it, in Windows 2000 and later, hh.exe and the other
HTML Help runtime components are considered to be part of the core
operating system and therefore protected by Windows File Protection.

If you want to disable the shortcut commands that make it possible to
run programs from help files, this page has some useful information:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/e...nSystemPoliciesForShortcutWinHelpCommands.asp

 

[Matthew Wetmore [MSFT]]

I'd really recommend *against* "security through obscurity."

You can prevent many configuration changes by taking users out of the
Administrators group, and with NTFS file permissions you can easily prevent
game files from being accessed or installed.

Don't hide things - make them completely unavailable using the available
tools. There are plenty of good things in help your users should still have
access to.

 

[Matt Stanzel]

Alex, if running XP, set the GP to disable the "Help &
Support" service.