How do I hide the games from Add/Remove Windows Components in Windows 7?

I agree, we should have the ability to hide the option of re-adding games.  MS wants to encourage corporate adoption of Win7, but isn't willing to assist admins in providing a clean image that follows most companies corporate standards of no games installed.  MS needs to address this.

But it is a games issue - not just for him - for MANY of us.

I feel like Microsoft employees keep telling us certain things are "old school" or  not the way we hsould be doing something. (Someone else aptly called it "Big Sister" ;)

But I, and a number of my officemates, are admins of our own laptops - but we also NEED to have hte games disabled.  Two of us have severe gaming addiction, and another man has very severe ADHD which leads to him having gaming issues.  Microsoft must be aware that some people have these issues - unless ALL of their employees are unflawed and/or never read a newspaper.

So not only for the waste of memory involved, but why include irremovable games in windows in the first place???  Why on earth make it impossible for adults who KNOW they have problems to be able to remove the source fo the problem?

I need to be admin of my own computer.  I also need there to be no games.  This lame-oh "prevnet them from showing up in the start menu" can't trick anyone with admin rights over the age of six.

I like many features of Windows 7.  I am just not understanding that when we ask how to do something or why we can't do it - why Microsoft keeps telling us that we don't really need to do it.  And then they refuse to address the needs of their users.

Yes, the 65 year old prize winning mathematics professor who works down the hallway from me and is a world genius needs to waste days adapting to the new start menu because Windows thinks everyone should abandon the "classic view".  What a waste of time for people of a certain age whose intellectual contributions will be the same even ifthey are using some supposedly archaic start menu... 

Anyway, this is off topic - biut honestly the games question above is an important GAMES question (and sys admin question).  It seems enough people out there want to REMOVE the games.  Actually remove them.   WE, as your customers, know we need this.  So please tell us how.

And if it's not possible, at least get it right next time you release a product.

Some admins NEED there to be no games - regardless of wha t you tell us we need.

Simone

Thank you for the reply, but thats not what I am looking for.

I want to hide the Games option completely (equivalent to editing the sysoc.inf in XP and entering HIDE in the line for the feature that you don't want displayed in Add/Remove Windows Components). Having the box unchecked is fine as they are not installed, but that does not stop anyone with admin rights from going in there and checking the box to install them. When I open optionalfeatures.exe, the first item I want to see is Indexing Service, not Games. I am looking to remove Games from the list.

Hi Lilh,

You can hide the default windows games from Windows features. For this follow the steps given below:

1.  Click on Start, type in optionalfeatures.exe and hit enter.

2.  You will get Windows features on or off screen on destop.

3.  To turn a feature off clear the check mark on games and restart the computer.

For more information check out the link given below:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Turn-Windows-features-on-or-off

After that check whether you are able to make an image or not

Shalini

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer.

Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

This isn't really a game question.

It's more of an admin question and if you want to lock down computers so user's can't play or install game Windows now uses Group policies for that.

Type gpedit.msc to see what's available.

Using Group Policy, administrators can configure, manage, and lock down different aspects of desktop and mobile PCs and the experience of users on these clients.

sysoc.inf is "old school" and not even supported so I'd look into getting a copy of the Windows 7 Resource Kit that covers how to deploy images and how to use Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK) 2.0 correctly if you are serious.