Prevent Adding New Printer

Add a new printer driver on Windows XP is very easy. Even it’s too easy. That’s very good to user to add printer onto Windows XP but on other side if all user can add it easily, that’s can be an irritating problem. The solution is restricting the access to install a new printer driver.

To doing it, we’ll play with registry. So, open your Registry Editor first by click Start – Run menu, type regedit then hit Enter key.
In Registry Editor, pointing to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE | Software | Microsoft | Windows | CurrentVersion | Policies | Explorer path. Inside this registry path, find NoAddPrinter key but if you don’t find it, create new it manually. To create it, right click on empty space in right panel then choose New – DWORD Value menu (You also can right click on Explorer key). Then replace your new DWORD value(usually its name is New Value #1) to NoAddPrinter value. Double click NoAddPrinter value, replace its value to 1 then click OK button. Close your Registry Editor.
Now, try to add a new printer and if you’re doing this trick right you’ll get a restriction message but if it doesn’t appear, try to restart your computer.
If you want to open the restriction, just change 1 value to 0 or delete the NoAddPrinter key.