How to change user restrictions without a control panel?

I can't open my control panel. Every time I try to open it, it tells me that I can't mke chages due to restrictions in effect on this computer. I never put restrictions on here and I own his comp and there are no other users...what ca I do to by-pass this?How to change user restrictions without a control panel?
Brace yourself. This is a long one.



First of all, that's a sign of malware on your machine. I'll give what I think MIGHT fix the immediate problem, then advise you on getting rid of the malware.



Restoring the control panel entails going into the Registry, and that's always risky. Some ground rules for using it:



1.Do NOTHING in Regedit other than what I detail here.

2.Commands in Regedit take effect immediately and have no Undo capability. We'll create a backup file, but some mistakes in editing the Registry can prevent successful booting up, making that file useless.

3.If you think you made a boo-boo during the editing, IMMEDIATELY, WITHOUT GETTING OUT OF Regedit, click on File-%26gt;Import, find the backup file and import it. That will put the registry back to the way it was before you edited it.



The procedure:



1.Click the Start-%26gt;Run menu item.

2.In the text box, enter



regedit.exe



and press Enter.



3.For safety, we're going to backup the registry in a .reg file. This will be a BIG file (think 60+ megabytes). Click the My Computer icon in Regedit檚 left-hand pane.

4.Click the File-%26gt;Export menu item.

5.Give the file a name and save it as a Registration File somewhere you'll be able to find it again if you need it.



6.Using the left-hand pane, navigate to this key:



HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ Explorer



7.In the right-hand pane there might be a value named NoControlPanel. If so, delete it.



8.Using the left-hand pane again, navigate to this key:



HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies\ Explorer



9.Try to bring up the control panel.



Now for the malware.



If you have an anti-virus, I suggest you make sure it has the latest virus definitions and run a scan with it. If you don檛 have one, many people here swear by AVG (it檚 free).



I suggest you also download Ad-Aware 2008 and Spybot S%26amp;D (they檙e free), install them, update them and run them. If any of the above (or any anti-malware, for that matter) doesn檛 seem to be able to run correctly or get rid of everything it reports finding, try running it again in Safe Mode. Safe Mode often prevents malware from protecting itself.



Also, turn off System Restore to evict any copies of bad stuff that might be lurking there.



To get into Safe Mode:



1.Log out and reboot your machine.

2.When the machine starts the reboot sequence, press the F8 key repeatedly.

3.Select Safe Mode from the resulting menu.

4.When the login screen comes up, log in as Administrator. By default, Administrator has no password.

5.The machine will continue booting, but the Windows desktop will look different. You won't be able to see the Internet, for instance.

6.When you're finished, log out and reboot back into normal mode.



Note that even if the anti-malware programs get rid of the malware, they may not be able to reverse the effects. Search the Web for possible fixes.



Update and run everything regularly.



Good luck.