title: Trying to edit the registry in Windows with a batch file
body: <p>I am supporting a few offices across the country running Windows XP. They are stand alone, no Windows Server or Active Directory, anything like that. I just switched them over to Google Apps, and in the process replaced Windows Live Messenger with Google Talk. I really want to stop Windows Live from being used, the platform sends so much spam and seems to have a lot of holes. I have tested making a registry edit to key</p>
  
  <pre><code>HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>adding a string value <code>msnmsgr.exe</code> set to <code>1</code>. I did it manually on one machine, and it worked, under both profiles, it wouldn't start Messenger. After my success, I wrote a .REG file thusly:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
  
  [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun]
  "msnmsgr.exe"="1"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And a batch file, run from the same directory, written like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>@ECHO off
  
  REGEDIT.EXE /S msn.reg
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>It seems to write to the registry, but Live is starting. No idea what's happening. Seems this could have gone either way between Serverfault and here, but I went here since the Administration part seems resolved yet the little programming involved isn't working out.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance for any assistance. </p>