How to Hide Items from Settings menu in Windows [3 Methods]

Sadique Hassan•Updated May 5, 2022

In this guide, we will show you three different methods to hide items from the Settings menu on your Windows PC. The Redmond giant is giving more preference to the Settings menu and is slowly pushing the Control Panel to oblivion. Slowly but surely, this transition has already begun, with the ability to uninstall apps directly from the Settings menu being one of the major talking points. However, this would then call for greater vigilance, especially if you are on a shared PC.

Hide Settings menu Windows — Hide Xbox Game Mode

Since the Settings menu doesn’t require any administrative privileges, users could easily change any system-level setting, either intentionality or otherwise. To prevent that from happening, you could make use of a nifty workaround to hide the desired items from the Settings menu on your Windows PC. And in this guide, we will show you three different methods through which you could do the same. So without any further ado, let’s get started.

Table of Contents

How to Hide Items from the Settings menu in Windows

Before starting off, make sure to get hold of the desired Setting’s menu Uniform Resource Identifiers [URI] from the Microsoft official documentation. Do note that you only need to copy the name after the ms-settings: keyword. For example, in the case of Xbox Game Mode, the URI is ms-settings:gaming-gamemode, so we will only be using gaming-gamemode.

Moreover, the first two methods are only applicable for PCs running Windows 10 and older, whereas the third method is applicable for Windows 11 PC as well. So refer to the method that is in sync with your requirement.

Hide Settings Menu Via Group Policy Editor [Windows 10]

To begin with, enable the Local Group Policy Editor on your PC.
Then bring up the Run dialog box via the Windows R shortcut.
Now type in the below command to open the Group Policy Editor
```
gpedit.msc
```
Then go to the below location from the left-hand side
```
Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel
```
Now open Settings Page Visibility from the right-hand side.
Then select Enabled. Likewise, in the Options section, under Settings Page Visibility, type in Hide followed by the URI [after the ms-settings: keyword] of the desired item that you need to hide from the Windows Settings menu.
For example, to hide the Xbox Game Mode from the Settings menu, then type in the following value
```
Hide gaming-gamemode
```
If you wish to hide more than one item, then separate those entries via a semicolon (;).
Finally, click Apply OK to save the changes. That’s it. The change will be reflected straight away in the Settings menu.

Hide Settings Menu Via Registry Editor [Windows 10]

Bring up the Run dialog box via the Windows R shortcut.
Then type in the below command to open Registry Editor
```
regedit
```
After that, copy-paste the below location into its address bar
```
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
```
Now right click on the Explorer key and select New > String Value.
Name it SettingsPageVisibility. Then double click to open it.
Now type in Hide followed by the URI [after the ms-settings: keyword] of the desired item that you need to hide from the Windows Settings menu.
For example, to hide the Xbox Game Mode from the Settings menu, type in the following value
```
Hide gaming-gamemode
```
If you wish to hide more than one item, then separate those entries via a semicolon (;).
Finally, click OK and the changes will be reflected right away in the Settings menu.

Hide Settings Menu Via Third-Party App [Windows 11]

Download Settings Blocker [link] and extract it to any convenient location on your PC.
Then double click on the WsBlocker_x64 EXE file to open the tool.
Now select from the following four options in the drop-down menu
- Disable Blocking: No Settings items will be blocked.
- Hide Pages: It will hide the Settings items that you instruct it to.
- Show Only Pages: It will only show the Settings items that you instruct it to.
- Block Settings Pages: It will block the entire Settings menu.
Once you have made the selection, click on the plus icon situated at the top right.
Now select the Settings menu item that you wish to block from the drop-down list.
After that, click on Add to List. You could add more items to this block list in a similar manner.
Once done, hit the checkmark icon to confirm the changes. That’s it. The changes will be reflected in the Settings menu right away.

How to Bring Back the Items in the Settings menu

Depending on the method you initially opted to hide the items, you could bring back those items using one of the following three methods;

Via Group Policy Editor

Open the Settings Page Visibility policy from Local Group Policy Editor and select Not Configured.

Via Registry Editor

Delete the SettingsPageVisibility string that you had earlier created.

Via Third-Party App

Select Disable Blocking from the drop-down menu OR select the hidden item from the list and hit Delete.

That’s it. These were the three different methods through which you could hide items from the Settings menu on your Windows PC. Likewise, we have also listed the steps to revert the change. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.

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