How to Remove “Network” from Windows Explorer Navigation Pane?
This tutorial will help you in removing “Network” icon from the Navigation pane in Windows 7 or later as shown in following screenshot:
Simply follow these simple steps:
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1. Type regedit in RUN or Start search box and press Enter. It’ll open Registry Editor.
2. Now go to following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}\ShellFolder
3. Now you’ll need to change value of Attributes DWORD present in the right-side section. But Windows will not allow you to change its value as you won’t have proper permissions. So take ownership of ShellFolder key with the help of this guide.
4. Now double-click on Attributes DWORD given in right-side section and change its value to b0940064
5. That’s it. Restart, log off or restart Explorer as given here to take effect and “Network” will no longer present in Explorer window.
If you want to restore “Network” in Navigation pane, simply change value of Attributes DWORD to b0040064 using step 4.
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NOTE: If you are using 64-bit edition of Windows, you may notice that Network icon is still present in “Browse” dialog box such as Save, Save as or Open in some 3rd party 32-bit programs. To remove Network icon from there, you’ll need to perform the same steps in following key as well:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}\ShellFolder
Just go to above mentioned key, take ownership of the key and in right-side pane, change value of Attributes DWORD to b0940064 to remove Network icon.
Vishal you are a very wonderful person. I so appreciate your guides, and I hope you continue to provide them. I’m about to take the chance and remove Libraries now.
Thank you again ! ! !
Great registry hack, just what I was looking for. Awesome.
Nice article. In case you don’t want to remove the network icon for all users (using HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT), instead one can use HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{F02C1A0D-BE21-4350-88B0-7367FC96EF3C}\ShellFolder and set the “Attribute” value there.
This has the benefit that it:
– can be applied only to selected users (using GPPs with item-level targeting or a login script)
– does not require to modify the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT permissions.
It actually doesn’t show up in Save As dialogues after editing the Value of Attributes. Does anybody know how to remove ‘Edit’ and ‘Print’ from the context menu of images??? Thanks in advance!
^^ Check method 2 in following tutorial:
https://www.askvg.com/tip-restoring-windows-photo-viewer-as-default-in-windows-10/
You can go to that key in Registry and delete the desired sub-key responsible to Edit or Print options. Make sure to export the key first so that you can restore it if required.
Really appreciate this tip! This fixed an issue I was having with the folder tree jumping away from where I was navigating. I think a connection under the Network node was very slow to update so I would be begin expanding folders under the tree, then after several seconds the network node would update, then the tree would jump back up to the last activated folder, losing my place in the tree. This seems to have fixed that behavior. I had to perform the second edit for 32-bit programs to remove it from the Save As under 32-bit office products. Thanks so much!
This does work to prevent users from accessing network places in windows explorer, but it also seems to prevent the administrator from accessing network devices by typing in the name of that device in the explorer bar.
For instance, I need to be able to access my CAD server by typing in \\cad in the explorer bar. This prevents that.
Is there a way to stop users from searching for devices on the network, but also allow the administrator to access specific network devices by typing in their name?
Oops, never mind. It was the GPO to remove the run entry from the start menu that was tripping me up. Funny how a setting I made to try and lock down the Start Menu would change part of Windows Explorer.
This registry edit works as advertised, and now I can access my servers by typing in their name. I’m happy.
Hi,
Thank you for the post. I am able to remove network icon from a computer using that.
However, I want to make a group policy for the whole domain to remove that icon. I wrote the registry settings in Group Policy Management Editor– User configuration>preferences>registry.
It does not work because of Permissions and ownership.