Task Manager is an extremely powerful tool in Windows, from diagnosing problems or closing stuck programs/services, even accounts that are limited have access to this program. While this might sound like a good thing it can cause huge headaches for system administrators if there are trouble makers in the company.

To Disabling Task Manager, click the Start button and go to Run and from there type gpedit.msc and press the ok button. The Group Policy Editor window should open and from there follow this path User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Ctrl+Alt+Delete options. From there on the right hand window find the Remove Task Manager option and change its value to enabled. Now on Task Manager will be disabled.

Though System Restore is a very useful feature, you might not want it to back up everything. If there’s a specific folder or location that you’d like system restore to pass over, you’ll have to do a bit of registry editing.

Click on Start then select Run and from there type "regedit" then follow this path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> System -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> BackupRestore -> FilesNotToBackup. From there create a new multi-string value and name it something descriptive so you know for the future. From there double click on the value to open it up and type in the full path of the directory you do not want to restore.

From now on when you create a restore point, System Restore will bypass any folders you mentioned in the registry under FilesNotToBackup.

When you want a computer to stay on 24/7 no matter who’s using it, take away the ability for other users to shut down the computer. This is an easy task. But before doing that, you must have administrative access.

Go to Start -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Local Security Settings and in the right hand window expand the Local Policies branch then click on the User Rights Assignment tab. On the right hand window now find the "Shut down the system policy" and double click on it that will open up a new window. Now simply add or remove the user groups that you want to have shut down power and you’re set!

If you don’t want others on the LAN to access your computer, passwords are the first step. But what about hiding the PC completely so that it’s not even visible on the network?

To hide a computer from the network neighborhood you first must load up a command prompt (Start -> Run then type CMD and press enter). From there type ‘net config server /hidden:yes’ and then press the enter key. After that’s done the PC you’re working on should disappear from the browser list (note it can take up to 30 minutes). If you want the computer to show up again, simply replace the ‘yes’ with a ‘no’.