This post shows students and new users how to lock down proxy settings and prevent users from changing them in Windows 11.
Some businesses setup proxy servers to control what leaves and enters the network. A proxy server is a network device that sits between your PC and the internet or external resources.
The proxy server makes requests for websites and services on behalf of the user’s computer.
Once you configure a proxy server for your users to connect through, the users will also have the rights to change or bypass the proxy server by changing its settings in Internet Explorer.
If you don’t want to have users changing their proxy settings and want to restrict their internet connect through the proxy server, you can configure Windows machine proxy setting and lock it down.
Below is how to do that.
How to prevent users from changing proxy settings in Windows 11
As mentioned above, if you don’t want to have users changing their proxy settings and restrict their internet connect through the proxy server, you can configure Windows machine proxy setting and lock it down.
Here’s how to lock down Windows proxy settings in Windows 11.
To lock down Proxy settings in Windows, open Local Group Policy Editor by clicking on the Start menu and searching for Edit group policy as highlighted below.
Under Best match, select Edit group policy to launch Local Group Policy Editor.
In the left pane of Local Group Policy Editor, expand the tree:
User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer
In the Internet Explorer details pane on the right, locate and double-click the setting Prevent changing proxy settings.
In the Prevent changing proxy settings setting window, set the option to Enabled.
Select OK.
Close Local Group Policy Editor.
If Prevent changing proxy settings is enabled and you want to disable it via the Local Group Policy Editor, then go to the policy path below:
User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Internet Explorer
Locate and double click on Prevent changing proxy settings settings, then set the option to Not configured.
Alternatively, you can perform the same in Windows Registry. Open the registry, and navigate to the folder path as shown below:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft
There, right-click on the Microsoft and select New Key, then name the key Internet Explorer.
Next, right-click the newly created Internet Explorer key and select New Key. Then name that key Control Panel. After that, right-click on the Control Panel key you just created and select New -> DWORD (32) Value, then name the value Proxy.
Finally, double click on the Proxy REG_DWORD value and open, then type 1 for Value data and click OK.
Users should not be able to change Windows proxy settings after setting up the configurations above.
That should do it!
Conclusion:
This post showed you how to prevent user from changing proxy settings in Windows 11. If you find any error above or have something to share, please use the comment form below.
