Hiding my network places in the file open dialog box

You can remove the network neighborhood by activating the following policies:
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer
* Remove options "Map network drive" and "Delete network drive"
* Don't show "Workgroup Contents" in Network Neighborhood
* Don't show "Entire Network" in Network Neighborhood
(Note that these are not the exact names, as I am not using an English version).

In addition, you can remove the complete "Places" bar with
User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Explorer\Standard Dialog
* Remove places bar in standard dialogs

You can hide this via the registry:

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/542/

This one may be relevant to your situation also:

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/862/

Hope this helps.

oBda - I tried to modify the GP settings like you said but the problems still exist.  Users can gain access when they are in an office program like word, open a file and then select the dropdown list.  Do you think these setting need to be modifyed in the MS OFFICE group policy templates?

Which Office version is this? I have a custom policy template someplace with which you can set the Office places bar.

office 2000

This is whats happening: say a user is in excel2000, they go to file-open and then the file dialog box comes up.  When they go to the dropdown list to select what drive they want eg (the network drive, their H:\ drive which is home folder etc...) it will also come up with my network places etc.  Here it what is causing the problem...becasue if you select my network places certain users are able to see machines in domain including our servers.  From there if there are shared drives (that are not admin shares $) they are able to see shared drives and can gain access to info i dont want them to have....what do you think about this.  

Another thing i just relized is that this is just happening in excel...not other office programs....do you think this could be in the excel group policy template.  I have them installed and configured but maybee i missed something in the excel template???

Save this as PlacesBar.adm (or whatever.adm), import it into the GPO of your choice. Note that these are not "real" group policies, it's what Microsoft calls in changing terms "preferred settings", "branding", or "tattoing", as these changes are written to the registry outside of the \policies\ keys. This means that settings configured with this template will *not* simply "go away" (like group policies) if you set the policy to "not configured", these settings need to be explicitly undone, as back in NT4 and system policies.
If you see only the folders in the GP editor, but no policies to configure, you need to highlight the "Administrative Templates" key, then go to the "View" menu and uncheck "Show group policies only".
As usual: No warranties included, use it at your own risk, test it before you apply it in earnest:

====8<----[PlacesBar.adm]----
CLASS USER

CATEGORY "Additional Settings"

  CATEGORY "Microsoft Office 2000"

    CATEGORY "Places Bar"

      POLICY "Use small symbols"
        KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Open Find\Places"
        VALUENAME "ItemSize"
        VALUEON NUMERIC 0
        VALUEOFF NUMERIC 1
      END POLICY ; "Use small symbols"

      POLICY "Hide Desktop Icon"
        KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Open Find\Places\StandardPlaces\Desktop"
        VALUENAME "Show"
        VALUEON NUMERIC 0
        VALUEOFF DELETE
      END POLICY ; "Hide Desktop Icon"

      POLICY "Hide Favorites Icon"
        KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Open Find\Places\StandardPlaces\Favorites"
        VALUENAME "Show"
        VALUEON NUMERIC 0
        VALUEOFF DELETE
      END POLICY ; "Hide Favorites Icon"

      POLICY "Hide 'My Documents' Icon"
        KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Open Find\Places\StandardPlaces\MyDocuments"
        VALUENAME "Show"
        VALUEON NUMERIC 0
        VALUEOFF DELETE
      END POLICY ; "Hide 'My Documents' Icon"

      POLICY "Hide Network Icon"
        KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Open Find\Places\StandardPlaces\Publishing"
        VALUENAME "Show"
        VALUEON NUMERIC 0
        VALUEOFF DELETE
      END POLICY ; "Hide Network Icon"

      POLICY "Hide Recent Icon"
        KEYNAME "Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\Open Find\Places\StandardPlaces\Recent"
        VALUENAME "Show"
        VALUEON NUMERIC 0
        VALUEOFF DELETE
      END POLICY ; "Hide Recent Icon"

    END CATEGORY ; "Places Bar"

  END CATEGORY ; "Microsoft Office 2000"

END CATEGORY ; "Additional Settings"
====8<----[PlacesBar.adm]----

Im going to test out what you gave me in my test envir.  But for now i agree that i am just going to set NTFS permissions and they wont be able to go anywhere...Thanks for input

GSP