• Disable Internet Explorer 7 Open up a registry editor and check if the key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0″ exists, otherwise create it (the key is the tree structure in regedit).
  Now enter a Key name “DoNotAllowIE70″ as a DWORD and give it the value “1″.
  This will keep Internet Explorer 8 from installing on this computer.
• Disable Internet Explorer 8 Open up a registry editor and check if the key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\8.0″ exists, otherwise create it (the key is the tree structure in regedit).
  Now enter a Key name “DoNotAllowIE80″ as a DWORD and give it the value “1″.
  This will keep Internet Explorer 8 from installing on this computer.

The values mean the following:

• When the key value name is not defined, distribution is not blocked.
• When the key value name is set to 0, distribution is not blocked.
• When the key value name is set to 1, distribution is blocked.

If you need to do this on several computers then you can download Toolkits to do this from Microsoft (warning: read the instructions and verify that you ran it correctly on the first computer you run it on):

• Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7
• Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 8

• Turn it off using the control panel:
  1. Open “Start”->”Settings”->”Control Panel”
  2. Open up “Sounds and Audio Devices”
  3. Open the tab that says “Sounds”
  4. Scroll down until you find “Windows Explorer”->”Start Navigation”
  5. When you mark this line at the bottom there is a drop down that is labeled “Sounds:” Here you should be able to change to anther sound or “none” if you do not wish a click.
• The second option is a bit more direct and rude – but if the above does not work for you (for me something kept resetting the old sound); just remove the file that contains the click sound.
  1. Open up a Windows Explorer and go to “%windir%\Media” and find the file that is named “Windows XP Start.wav”
  2. Either remove it (permanently) or rename it to something that windows won’t recognize (but you can – so you later can reverse this if you would like to)

Hint: Verify that the mac for the correct interface is used. If there are several adapters (this list includes virutal adapters and vpn adapters).