At work we have a computer which is not connected to the office network. One of our staff has a tendency to treat it as her own and put her own homepage on it etc…
How do I disable this ability (I have admin passwords) Do I have to log in to the administrator login, or can I do it via the registry (which would be enough as the person in question isn’t savvy enough to alter the registry.
Go to your regedit (make sure you’re on the user you want changed as it is HKEY_CURRENT_USER)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Control Panel\
Put a new DWORD value in the Control Panel called ‘Homepage’ and modify the value from ‘0’ to ‘1.’
Under policies there is only one folder which is ‘systemcertificates’
there is an internet explorer folder in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ but it doesn’t have a control panel folder.
edit: It just occured to me that if I made the folders myself then it might work
If you Google:
lock home page internet explorer
you’ll even find a couple of sites that offer .reg files that you can download and use.
Did exactly that, thanks 
There are several freeware and commercial utility tools that allow you to configure and “lockdown” a Windows PC. I’m not talking about hackers who delight in this but average office folks who are computer savvy enough to get them in trouble and feign ignorance.
The bizarre thing is, I now seem to be using IE6. I swear I was on IE7 before I ran the registry fix.
Not to worry, Microsoft are forcing a stealth upgrade to IE7 so it will revert.
Superantispyware has a tool to lock IE against unwarranted changes.
Another useful tool is Poledit (policy editor) from Microsoft. I’ve used it to keep more than a few problem users out of my hair.
Not the best tool, not the worst tool, but effective in many cases like this one.