At workplaces such as big firms or organizations, administrators always add restrictions on Registry Editor usage and disable its function. Restrictions are added so that employees cannot modify or change anything on computers without permission on Windows XP.
It may also be possible that the Registry Editor is not accessible on your own system, possibly due to the system having been infected by viruses, Trojans, or Spyware. Programmers who create viruses and other malware always try to disable the Registry Editor, making it difficult to access the Registry Editor.
Regardless of which reason your Registry Editor is disabled, you can still enable your Register Editor on Windows XP following the below steps. Don’t worry; we have tried to keep the explanation as simple as possible so that even a non-techie person can do these steps in seconds.
Follow the below steps to Enable Registry Editor on Windows XP:
Primarily, there are two possible solution to enable Registry Editor.
Solution #1:
This will add or modify a registry key, which will enable the Registry Editor on the system and will remove the restriction from the Registry Editor.
1. Go to Start –> Run or simply press Window Logo + R .
2. Now, in the Run Dialog box, Copy and Paste the below command in the Run command and Click “OK.”
REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v DisableRegistryTools /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
Solution #2:
Another method to Enable Registry Editor is through using Group Policy Editor, but if your pc is infected, then it may be possible that your Group Policy Editor has also been disabled.
1. Go to Start –> Run –> Type “gpedit.msc” without quotes and Click OK.
2. In Group Policy Editor, Go to Local Computer Policy –> User Configuration –> Administrative Templates –> System.
3. Now, in the right-side pane, Double-click on “Prevent access to registry editing tools.”

4. In the settings tab, Click on Not Configured and Click on Apply and OK. In case it is already set to not configured, then change it to Disabled. Click on Apply to save the settings, and Click OK.

Now try accessing the Registry Editor; you will be able to access and use Registry Editor without any restriction. However, if the error is still not solved, then it may be possible that the virus has tampered with the registry program.
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I tried to do this finally got a good result… http://www.infoquestit.com
I used to get this error and i formatted my pc but again my pc got infected and now i searched on net and found many article to fix registry but most of them was difficult to understand but i found your article simple and fast to implement.and solved my problem.
[…] Restriction in XP K.roshan | December 28, 2009 | Comments (0) In my previous post "How to fix registry editor disabled by administrator," I’ve explained how to fix and enable it. Following to my previous post, we have been […]