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Disable Drag And Drop In Windows Explorer?


John259

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Is there any way to disable drag and drop in Windows Explorer? (In Windows XP Home Edition, SP1)I occasionally move something by accident and it would be nice to be able to prevent any risk of this happening. I know I can Edit > Undo but I'm not always sure whether the accident really happened or not. It happens when you're working quickly and half catch the mouse button as you're moving it.I'm quite happy to have to use cut and paste instead.John

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Hello,I'm not sure whether there is a way to disable drag & drop (most probably not).However, what I am doing in order to prevent such accidents, is to drag & drop using the secondary ("right") mouse button. Thus, a menu pops up, asking me what to do, and I have a second chance to cancel any operation.

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Hello,I'm not sure whether there is a way to disable drag & drop (most probably not).However, what I am doing in order to prevent such accidents, is to drag & drop using the secondary ("right") mouse button. Thus, a menu pops up, asking me what to do, and I have a second chance to cancel any operation.
Thanks for that suggestion, which would help avoid incorrect dragging.However, my "accidents" are when I catch the left mouse button and perform a drag when I didn't intend to perform any kind of drag at all.John
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However, my "accidents" are when I catch the left mouse button and perform a drag when I didn't intend to perform any kind of drag at all.
If you switch the button functions of the mouse (Start>Control Panel>Mouse>Buttons) as Data, er Doryforos noted that will prevent accidental drags.A new mouse with higher push pressure specs would help also but I don't which brand that would be.
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redmaledeer

My Win_98SE IE5.5 has a "Drag and Drop or Copy and Paste Files" option, which sounds like a possibility. The choices are the usual Enable/Disable/Prompt. It's atInternet Options/Security/Custom Level/Drag and Drop or Copy and Paste Files. I don't know whether that applies to XP.

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Internet Options/Security/Custom Level/Drag and Drop or Copy and Paste Files.
That option does exists in IE 6 also.I had assumed that John259's problem was with Windows Explorer but I could be wrong.
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I had assumed that John259's problem was with Windows Explorer but I could be wrong.
Yes, the problem is in Windows Explorer.But now that Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer are virtually the same program [ :) ], I'll give that option a try.Thanks for all the suggestions.John
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I looked at the option in IE, but of course in Securiity the only options are for the various Internet zones, not for the computer you're actually using. Sorry folks, that doesn't seem to be the answer. The wording of the option is very vague, but I read it disabling both drag and drop and copy and paste, but how that relates to what web site scripts want to do in IE doesn't make any sense to me.I'm surprised there's not a Registry tweak to disable drag and drop in Windows Explorer. It seems to me to be the sort of thing lots of people might want to disable.John

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Just a thought - and I've not yet had a chance to try this but have seen parallel applications for areas other than Explorer - can you modify the Registry as follows?I think you would need to be in 2 sections:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\ExplorerandHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorerthen create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called "DragAndDrop" and set it to 0 = default, or 1 = enable restriction.Any thoughts?Andy

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redmaledeer

Thrashing around a bit more, I Googled("drag and drop" disable XP Windows Explorer)There were thousands of hits. I didn't offhand see any applicable, but maybe there is a nugget if one looked harder.

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Are we overlooking the obvious? Using the keyboard to navigate rather than the mouse? . :huh: Most things done with the mouse can be done with the keyboard.

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HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\ExplorerandHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorerthen create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called "DragAndDrop" and set it to 0 = default, or 1 = enable restriction.
It tried that suggestion but it had no effect. Nor did NoDragAndDrop = 1.Thanks for the idea though.John
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I did some more research on Google. It seems like a lot of folks have asked this question but there's no way to do it :(However, you can use TweakUI to adjust how sensitive the mouse is to drag and drops. I've changed that on my computer and I'll see how it goes. Probably better than nothing.Thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas.John

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  • 4 weeks later...
binodnepal

Yes, you can disable drag and drop on the start menu. But it is little boring:Join your computer to Windows NT/2000 Domain. Sit on the server. Go to run, type, dsa.msc.On the Active Directory, there is a directory called "Domain Computers". Right Click it and click properties. On the Policy tab, click new. After that click edit.Now domain controller security policy window pops up. Double Click on Computer Configuration. Double Click "Windows Explorer"; Double click "Taskbar and Start Menu Settings". You will be shown a list of options.Double click the option that says "Disable Drag and Drop Contents to Start Menu". Now Click Enabled.Now restart your computer, which is client computer.Now after your computer is restarted, you cannot use "Drag and Drop" on the start menu. B)

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  • 1 year later...
I did some more research on Google. It seems like a lot of folks have asked this question but there's no way to do it :(However, you can use TweakUI to adjust how sensitive the mouse is to drag and drops. I've changed that on my computer and I'll see how it goes. Probably better than nothing.Thanks to everyone who has contributed ideas.John
I know this is an old thread, but I had to write the final and working solution to this, after searching for a solution for a very long time. Thanks to John259's post I figured it out. As he says, you can use TweakUI to adjust the limit (in pixels) to adjust how sensitive the mouse is to drag and drops from the standard value of 4 to a maximum of 32. But if you change that value in the registry instead you can set a much higher value, one that exceeds the screen resolution and therefore makes it impossible to move the mouse enough away from an object. That way Windows never notice it's supposed to drag the object away along with the mouse pointer.Making a simple reg-file containing this solves the problem: REGEDIT4[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]"DragHeight"="999999""DragWidth"="999999"Restart the computer for the change to have effect.Resetting these values to 4 sets it all back to default again. Thanks John259!!! B) //Jim
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I had to write the final and working solution to this
Forget about my post above, unless you at the same time as disabling drag and drop in Windows Explorer want to disable the possibility of moving (non-maximized) windows on the desktop. Apparently this setting is the same. I just discovered that... :thumbsup: How annoying Windows can be at times! :hysterical: //Jim
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  • 2 months later...

Thanks for the help. I too have problems with this. Usually it is when I am holding the "ctrl" key and selecting multiple files. If i miss click a file it copies everything I`ve selected. I found that in TweakUI instead of using the scroll buttons to change the value upto 32, you can actually type in "99" and get about three times the distance. I think this will solve my problem...

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