Removing Internet Connection Wizard from Windows 2000 Professional deployments

Sean Stecker

For most Windows 2000 Professional deployments, we would like to setup the workstation so that very little, if any post processing is needed by the end user.  By default, Internet Explorer tries to "help" everyone out by asking how the user would like to connect to the Internet.   However, in a managed environment, this is less than desirable.

For most Windows 2000 Professional deployments, we would like to setup the workstation so that very little, if any post processing is needed by the end user. By default, Internet Explorer tries to help everyone out by asking how the user would like to connect to the Internet. However, in a managed environment, this is less than desirable.

Microsoft has a Knowledge Base article that addresses this issue.  We will go through the steps needed to remove this "feature" from our deployed image and enable a smooth transition to the new OS.

 

Expectations:

This procedure will remove the Internet Connection Wizard for all FUTURE profiles.  This will not remove ICW from existing profiles on the workstation.  This procedure is much more beneficial to new installations,  but can be used on existing ones.

 

Assumptions:

This article assumes a fairly generic Internet connection.  For instance, no presence of a Proxy server.  If you have a Proxy server in use in your organization, you may need to configure it's settings through Group Policy, either on the local workstation, or a Windows 2000 Domain Controller, to correctly pass the connection information to the deployed workstations.

I will cover Group Policy in my next article which will be posted within a couple of days.

 

Registry diving 101:

For this procedure, we will use old reliable, REGEDT32.  Open REGEDT32 and click the HKEY_USERS box, then Load Hive on the Registry Menu.  Browse to NTUSER.DAT in the Default User profile, and load the hive with the key name TEST.  

Open the key

HKEY_USERS\Test\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Runonce

and delete the value

"^SetupICWDesktop : REG_SZ : C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\Connection Wizard\icwconn1.exe /desktop"

Now click the TEST hive, and then select Unload Hive from the Registry menu.

 

Accomplishments:

We have now configured NTUSER.DAT with no Internet Connection Wizard information.  When a new user profile is created on the workstation, it parses NTUSER.DAT for it's default settings, which in this case, no longer include the Internet Connection Wizard.