There is no easy way to remove the My Computer icon from the desktop.

It is possible, however, to restrict it so that no action is performed when someone attempts to double-click this icon.

Here is the procedure:

• Run Registry Editor (RegEdit.exe). Please be very careful when using this tool, because if you do something wrong with it, you may end up reinstalling Windows from scratch!

• Find the following key in the Registry:

    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
      CLSID
        {20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}
          shell

  Create a new subkey under this key and rename it to open. (To create the subkey: right-click on shell, select New - Key from the shortcut menu, and then enter open as the name of the new key.) Now create another subkey, command, under the key open. The resulting structure of these keys should look like the following:

          shell
            open
              command

• Now select the command subkey you've just created and open the Default value of this key (by double-clicking (Default) in the right pane of the Registry Editor window) and specify the following command as its Value data:

  Explorer.exe /root

Now, whenever the user attempts to open the My Computer item on the Desktop, it will not open.

To restore the original functioning of the My Computer icon, simply delete the open and command keys you've created during the procedure.

Note: Changing this setting affects all users of the computer.

Note: It is very easy to bypass this protection: simply right-click on the My Computer icon, and choose Open from the shortcut menu.

Instead of restricting the My Computer folder, you may find it easier to restrict access to the items this folder contains. You can use Folder Guard to set up such restrictions. Please refer to its Help for more information.