Prevent exe from running on Windows by file name
There are several different ways to prevent executable from running on Windows. Here is a trick how to prevent it from running by file name, no matter where that exe located, what permissions does it have and etc.
Assume your unwanted exe is bloatware.exe
. Consider the following .reg
snippet:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\bloatware.exe]
"debugger"="pwned"
So it creates a registry key bloatware.exe
and adds a value pwned
named debugger
.
It has the following meaning: if someone tries to run bloatware.exe
, then, instead of direct run, OS will run pwned.exe
and pass bloatware.exe
as a commandline parameter. As you can see from the value name, this feature is designed for debugging purposes. In our case we don't need a debugger. We need to prevent it from running. So all you need to do is to put there any executable that will do nothing.