If you have a Map Network Drive on your computer, you may want to remove the menu item from the Windows Vista or XP operating systems. The menu item is not necessary and can cause problems. The Map Network Drive is a program that allows you to access information about other computers on the network. If you remove the menu item, other users may not be able to find your computer or access its files. This can cause problems because you may need to share important files with others on the network. If you remove the menu item, make sure that you understand how it works and how it affects your computer. You also should be sure that you are comfortable with its implications before removing it.
If you are unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, just right-click on the Computer icon and you’ll see:
Here’s that same context menu without the items.
Of course, it would probably be simplest to just uninstall, disable or remove file sharing altogether, but if you don’t want to do that and still want the menu items gone, this registry hack is for you.
Note: This will completely disable all connect/disconnect menu items, including on currently mapped drives and the Tools menu.
Manual Registry Hack
Open regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then navigate down to the following key, creating if it does not exist.
On the right-hand pane create a new 32-bit DWORD value with the following values:
Name: NoNetConnectDisconnect Value: 1
The change should be immediate, you can right-click on Computer to see the difference. To remove, just delete the key or set the value to 0.
Download Registry Hack
Just download, extract, and double-click on RemoveMapNetworkDrive.reg to enter the information into the registry. There’s also an uninstall script included to reverse the effect.
Download RemoveMapNetworkDrive Registry Hack
