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Feb 2020

Hello,

I recently took over an IT admin position, and the previous tech had problems with users accidentally changing the monitor settings on a boardroom laptop that has a TV connected to it. In order to stop this he supposedly edited the registry to make it so none of he display settings are changeable for any user. All options under settings → display are grayed out. Its currently locked to extend the displays.

I have no idea what key could have been changed to do this. I looked around but nothing jumped out at me. I deleted all the keys under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\ and it still wouldn’t let me change it. There is no group policy set to do this either.

Am I missing something completely obvious on this one?

I’ve only experienced the greyed-out box in settings in 2 scenarios 1. an unlicensed version of Windows and 2. a GPO preventing a user from changing the setting.
I would double-check the group policy again.
Is the Laptop in a special OU?

No, its in the same OUs as all the other boardroom laptops, none of which are having this issue.

There are two sets of registry entries. I dont know which one controls what you are after:

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers*Configuration*

there will be subfolders for each individual monitor, with additional configuration settings under those.

The other is Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video{guid}\0000

Nothing in these seemed to change this. Maybe its actually a registry key for within the settings app in particular? I’ll do some googling to see if I can find anything.

This forum: Where "Display Properties" -> settings data are stored in registry | Microsoft Learn

says HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\VIDEO.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-hardware/windows-10-reset-external-monitors-settings/b3a53cef-e54f-4410-b09e-6846fa297a3f

says:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Connectivity

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\ScaleFactors

Another site says:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\DISPLAY

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration\

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Configuration
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\GraphicsDrivers\Connectivity

Thanks everyone for your responses, turns out it wasn’t a registry key but was a local group policy in Local Computer Policy → User Configuration → Administrative Templates → Control Panel → Display, then Disable the Display Control Panel.


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