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Use Group Policy to disable user interface items and shortcut keys in Office 2013

  • Article

 

Applies to: Office 2013

Summary: Explains how to disable user interface commands, menu items, and keyboard shortcuts for Office 2013 by using Group Policy.

Audience: IT Professionals

Administrators can configure Group Policy settings to disable Office 2013 user interface (UI) items and keyboard shortcuts either by using control IDs and virtual key codes, or by configuring policy settings that contain predefined commands and shortcuts.

Important

Before performing any of the procedures in this article, make sure that you have loaded the Office 2013 Administrative Template files. To load the Administrative Template files, download the files and follow the instructions in the "Loading the ADMX templates" section of the Use Group Policy to enforce Office 2010 settings article. Although the article is for Office 2010, the Administrative Templates information also applies to Office 2013.

In this article:

  • Using Group Policy to disable UI items and keyboard shortcuts

  • Disabling commands by using control IDs

  • Disabling keyboard shortcuts by using virtual key codes

  • Disabling predefined user interface items and keyboard shortcuts

Using Group Policy to disable UI items and keyboard shortcuts

You can use Group Policy settings to disable UI commands, menu items, and keyboard shortcuts for Office 2013 applications.

Several Office 2013 applications have policy settings that predefine user interface commands and keyboard shortcut that you can disable. You do not have to use control IDs or virtual key codes for these predefined items. For more information, see Disabling predefined user interface items and shortcut keys later in this article.

For UI commands and keyboard shortcuts that it does not predefine, Group Policy provides two policy settings in which you can by specify the toolbar control ID (TCID) for the UI controls or virtual key codes for keyboard shortcuts.

The Custom | Disable commands and Disable shortcut keys policy settings are available for the following Office 2013 applications:

  • Access 2013

  • Excel 2013

  • Outlook 2013

  • PowerPoint 2013

  • Project 2013

  • Visio 2013

  • Word 2013

The Custom | Disable commands policy settings are also available for the following Office 2013 applications:

  • InfoPath 2013

  • Publisher 2013

  • SharePoint Designer 2013

Policy settings for the Office 2013 applications are accessed under the User Configuration\Administrative Templates node in the Group Policy Management Editor. To disable user interface items and shortcut keys, administrators can enable one of the following policy settings under the [Office 2013 application name]\Disable items in User Interface\Custom node for a specific Office application:

  • Disable commands   Allows you to specify the control ID for the command that you want to disable. If you disable a TCID, that TCID is disabled everywhere the toolbar control is used. To disable a tab, you can disable the controls on the tab. For more information, see Disabling commands by using control IDs later in this article.

  • Disable shortcut keys   Allows you to specify the virtual key code and modifier (as key,modifier) for the keyboard shortcut that you want to disable. A virtual key code is a hardware-independent number that uniquely identifies a key on the keyboard (for example, K) in Windows, and modifier is the value of either a modifier key (such as ALT, CONTROL, or SHIFT) or a combination of modifier keys in Windows. For more information, see Disabling shortcut keys by using virtual key codes later in this article.

Disabling commands by using control IDs

You must first obtain the control IDs for the Office 2013 application controls that you want to disable by using the custom Disable commands policy setting. For a list of the control IDs for built-in UI commands and menu items in all applications that use the Office Fluent UI, see Office 2013 Help Files: Office Fluent User Interface Control Identifiers.

For information about how to use Group Policy tools, see Group Policy management tools in Overview of Group Policy for Office 2013.

To disable commands by using control IDs

  1. Verify that you have the necessary security permissions for the GPO: either Edit settings or Edit settings, delete, and modify security. For more information about permissions that are needed to manage Group Policy, see “Delegating administration of Group Policy” in the Group Policy Planning and Deployment Guide.

  2. Open GPMC.

  3. In the Group Policy Management Editor navigation pane, open (double-click) User Configuration, open Administrative Templates, and then open the application for which you want to disable commands (for example, open Microsoft Excel 2013).

  4. Open Disable items in User Interface, choose Custom, and then, in the details pane, open Disable commands.

  5. Choose Enabled, and then choose Show.

  6. In the Show Contents dialog box, under Value, enter the control ID for the command that you want to disable. You can add multiple control IDs, one per line.

    For example, to disable the Check for Updates button in Excel (assuming you had previously added this command to the Excel Quick Access Toolbar), you would enter 9340, which is the control ID for the CheckForUpdates control.

  7. When you have finished entering control IDs, choose OK, and then choose OK again to exit the Disable commands dialog box.

Disabling shortcut keys by using virtual key codes

To disable shortcut keys by using virtual key codes, you set the Disable shortcut keys policy setting under the [Office 2013 application name]\Disable items in User Interface\Custom node and add the virtual key code and modifier for the user interface item that you want to disable. Key is the numeric value for a key (such as V) in Windows. Modifier is the value of either a modifier key such as CONTROL, or a combination of modifier keys in Windows.

The following articles provide information about Office combination shortcut keys, function keys, and other common shortcut keys, together with descriptions of their functionality. You need the shortcut key information to use the Custom | Disable shortcut keys policy settings.

The following table provides values for keys and modifiers.

Values for shortcut keys and modifiers in Office 2013

Key or modifier Value (decimal)

ALT

16

CONTROL

8

SHIFT

4

A

65

B

66

C

67

D

68

E

69

F

70

G

71

H

72

I

73

J

74

K

75

L

76

M

77

N

78

O

79

P

80

Q

81

R

82

S

83

T

84

U

85

V

86

W

87

X

88

Y

89

Z

90

The following table lists the values for the function keys used by the system.

Values for function keys in Office 2013

Function key Value (decimal)

F1

112

F2

113

F3

114

F4

115

F5

116

F6

117

F7

118

F8

119

F9

120

F10

121

F11

122

F12

123

For a more complete list of symbolic constant names, hexadecimal values, and mouse or keyboard equivalents for the virtual-key codes used by the system, see Virtual-Key Codes.

To disable shortcut keys by using virtual key codes

  1. Verify that you have the necessary security permissions for the GPO: either Edit settings or Edit settings, delete, and modify security. For more information about permissions that are needed to manage Group Policy, see “Delegating administration of Group Policy” in the Group Policy Planning and Deployment Guide.

  2. Open GPMC.

  3. In the Group Policy Management Editor navigation pane, open (double-click) User Configuration, open Administrative Templates, and then open the application for which you want to disable commands (for example, open Microsoft Excel 2013).

  4. Open Disable items in User Interface, choose Custom, and then, in the details pane, open Disable shortcut keys.

  5. Choose Enabled, and then choose Show.

  6. In the Show Contents dialog box, under Value, enter the values for the keyboard shortcuts that you want to disable as [key],[modifier]. You can add multiple value combinations to disable multiple keyboard shortcuts, adding them one on each line.

    For example, to disable the shortcut keys ALT+F11 in Excel, which opens the Microsoft Visual Basic Editor where you can create a macro, enter 122,16 in the Value dialog box (where F11 key = 122 and modifier = 16).

    Note

    If there are multiple modifier keys for the keyboard shortcut, add the values of the modifier keys together to determine the modifier value that you should enter. For example, for the ALT+SHIFT combination, you would use the sum of their assigned values, 16+4 = 20.

  7. When you have finished entering control IDs, choose OK, and then choose OK again to exit the Disable shortcut keys dialog box.

Disabling predefined user interface items and shortcut keys

Policy settings are also available to disable predefined user interface items and shortcut keys for the Office 2013 applications. You can disable these items directly from the policy setting without having to use control ids or key codes. These policy settings are available in User Configuration\Administrative Templates\[Office 2013 application name], under the Disable items in user interface\Predefined node of the Group Policy Management Editor. Policy settings for disabling user interface items are available for the following applications:

  • Access 2013

  • Excel 2013

  • PowerPoint 2013

  • Word 2013

  • SharePoint Designer 2013

  • Publisher 2013

  • Visio 2013

To disable predefined commands

  1. Verify that you have the necessary security permissions for the GPO: either Edit settings or Edit settings, delete, and modify security. For more information about permissions that are needed to manage Group Policy, see “Delegating administration of Group Policy” in the Group Policy Planning and Deployment Guide.

  2. Open GPMC.

  3. In Group Policy Management Editor navigation pane, open (double-click) User Configuration, open Administrative Templates, open the application for which you want to disable commands (for example, open Microsoft Excel 2013), open Disable items in User Interface, and then choose Predefined.

  4. In the details pane, open Disable commands, and then, in the Disable commands dialog box, choose Enabled.

  5. Choose the commands that you want to disable, and then choose OK.

To disable predefined shortcut keys

  1. Verify that you have the necessary security permissions for the GPO: either Edit settings or Edit settings, delete, and modify security. For more information about permissions that are required for managing Group Policy, see “Delegating administration of Group Policy” in the Group Policy Planning and Deployment Guide.

  2. In Group Policy Management Editor navigation pane, open (double-click) User Configuration, open Administrative Templates, open the application for which you want to disable commands (for example, open Microsoft Excel 2013), open Disable items in User Interface, and then choose Predefined.

  3. In the details pane, open Disable shortcut keys, and then, in the Disable shortcut keys dialog box, choose Enabled.

  4. Choose the commands that you want to disable, and then choose OK.

See also

Overview of Group Policy for Office 2013
Plan Group Policy for Office 2013