Copyright© 1998 Kevin H. Devin
Copyright© 1998 Kevin H. Devin
| Introduction: | CPLM (Control Panel appLet Manager) is a small and incredibly simple utility used to enable and disable the Add/Remove Programs Applet from within Windows 9x. If you saw the code, you'd laugh at me, for I'm sure there are probably numerous other ways to code it and use much less code. None-the-less... It's functional. To me, that's the important part |
| Additional Info: | Q: Why did you
create CPLM? A: CPLM was born out of the need to "clamp" down the desktops a little more than what is capable from Microsoft and the use of policies. Policies will allow you to disable the Control Panel completely as well as disable some of the various applet's functionality, but nothing is there for locking out the Add/Remove Programs Applet. That's where CPLM comes in. We wanted to leave certain parts of the desktop to be controlled by the user, but NOT allow them to add/remove programs. Though this does not 100% prevent such actions, at least it is a hurdle.
Q: What ways can the Add/Remove Programs applet be disabled? A: There are only two methods to my knowledge to disable this applet. 1) Simply rename the applet APPWIZ.CPL to something else. ..OR.. 2) Place an entry into the C:\WINDOWS\CONTROL.INI like the following:
It appears that ANYTHING to the right of the equals sign will disable the applet from being displayed in Control Panel. Leaving the entry BUT with nothing following the equal sign, the applet is still enabled and displayed within Control Panel
Q: How does CPLM disable the applet? A: It really doesn't "disable" the applet. It simply does not allow it to be displayed within the control panel. In other words, if you did a START.RUN and input the following: C:\WINDOWS\CONTROL.EXE C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\APPWIZ.CPL The Add/Remove Programs applet would load. All CPLM does is add or remove the "NO" to/from the right of the equal sign to enable or disable the applet from being displayed and run from control panel..
Q: What is the legal part on this program? A: The legal part is this... I'm submitting this as public domain and in doing so I do not plan to support this little thing. I just thought that maybe others might benefit in some way from it as well. If it doesn't suit you, throw it away. If it breaks itself, or something of yours, you get to keep the pieces. I accept NO responsibility for any of it. If that sounds harsh, I'm sorry. It's a 15KB utility to enable or disable an applet... not a tool to control a nuclear power plant or something. If you do find the tool useful, please drop me an e-mail and let me know. |
| Requirements: | The Visual Basic 5
Runtime Modules are required for this utility to run. You can get these from: ..OR.. |
| Installation: | Unzip and place CPLM.EXE (15Kb) where ever you prefer. In a network environment this works well where all PCs have the VB5.0 runtime files and CPLM.EXE is then placed within a secure directory on the network server. |
| Screen Shot: |  |