Disabling the Task Manager

Example of modifying Windows registry values. This example disables the Windows Task Manager.

Background

For whatever reason, some people have reason to restrict access to the task manager. Maybe you're a researcher running a long computation and don't want anyone killing your process. Maybe you're a sysadmin trying to lock a computer down. Maybe you're an asshole and don't want people killing your fake av process. An incredible obtrusive way to disable it is by modifying the value of the SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\DisableTaskMgr key. Note that Malwarebytes flags this.

The key in question resides at

Key Location: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

with

Key Name: DisableTaskMgr

Setting this to 1 (true) should be a first order approximation to preventing access to the control panel

Code

The code is fairly simple. It doesn't take into account that the Key Location doesn't exist. It uses the winreg module to first open, then write, and close the registry.