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[cross posted from superuser - I believe the question is also relevant here]

I'm trying to harden a windows 7 machine, including replacing the default login shell from explorer.exe to a custom application. This part works well.

However, I also want that the administrator will still be able to manage the machine, so I modified the user specific key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\shell

back to explorer.exe - but when I log on I get a single windows file explorer window, and not the full desktop.

does any one know how to configure the normal desktop shell only to a specific user?

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  • I'm not 100% sure, but I think the shell needs to be set to explorer without the .exe to work. (It's been awhile since I've messed with alternate shells.) On my Windows 7 machine, which hasn't had the shell changed, there is no shell value at all.
    – Iszi
    Mar 7, 2011 at 4:32

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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It seems like you're going about this the wrong way round, instead of mucking around with vaguely documented registry keys, I think you'd be better off just defining a proper GPO (group policy object).
I dont have an environment handy to verify this, but I assume its possible to define a custom shell according to the user's group...

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  • In non enterprise versions of windows 7, there is no (easy) way to setup different configurations for different users.
    – Ophir Yoktan
    Mar 6, 2011 at 14:52
  • Ah, if its non-enterprise then you're probably not domain-joined, and hence no GPO....
    – AviD ♦
    Mar 6, 2011 at 15:46
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See the MSDN article on different shells for different users.

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  • 5
    an answer which just consists of a link will get downvoted/deleted. We generally expect local content that can stand alone if the external link rots. Of course, having the link as an extra is good too.
    – Rory Alsop ♦
    Nov 25, 2011 at 16:03

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