Policy settings prevent windows from opening shortcut

Asked By wexler huddard 10 points N/A Posted on - 02/25/2012

Hi guys.

I am working as an administrator of a large network running Windows XP on the desktop, Windows 2000 servers and Exchange. Client gets a message about group policy settings stop him doing so and to check the Event Viewer, when he tries to copies or attaches shortcut to new email and then tries to open it, 

There is no problem found when client attaches the actual document. The following error message is displayed:
 
Error: "Windows cannot open this shortcut because it has been prevented by a software restriction policy. For more information open the Event Viewer or contact your system administrator."
 
Is this a common problem? It emerged recently and may be related to a hotfix or a Service Pack 1 that is the only thing that I think we have done recently that might have caused it.  There are several workarounds of clients – sending the shortcut embedded in a doc, or using an unc path.  These both run without any issues.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for help.

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Answered By Tanok Bloran 80 points N/A #107916

Policy settings prevent windows from opening shortcut

There are several reasons why we may get error messages pertaining to software restriction policies.It can be due to the default security level or because of a rule that was created which causes the software program to be set to “Disallowed”.  Sometimes, it can also be because a path rule may have been created and has set the security level to “Unrestricted”. Or the path rule may have been configured to point to a mounted NTFS file system volume.

To have this matter resolve, you just need to look in the event log for the in-depth description of the message. It will indicate what software program was set to “Disallowed” and what rule was applied to the said program. Another resolution is the supported hotfix which is available through Microsoft. Please click on this link to get to the hotfix page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/873419/-windows-cannot-open-this-program-because-it-has-been-prevented-by-a-s.

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• Posted on - 03/02/2012
• Question Category: Network Management