I'm currently in a mood of passive aggressive rage, because the retarded students here keep changing the WLAN to something they're not supposed to use, resulting in that the incredibly shitty outloan laptops we've got works even shittier.
So, I'm wondering if anybody know of any type of GPO setting, or some crap like that, that might block their access to do so, but not inhibit their usage of the network they're supposed to use.
I've tried googling it, but I only find crap I've got no use for, and it's starting to drive me insane.

Wish I'd not thrown out my tafe notes during my last big cleanup, I could have scanned all the desktop security stuff
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/grouppolicy/default.aspx
Thats the technet site for group policy management
Basically I'd just sit down with xp/vista/7 and methodically hunt through the GPedit, look at each item and ask if the user needs it. If not, disable it. My philosophy on network security (which got me a distinction) is that you give the users exactly what they need to do their job and nothing more because they'll use whatever you give them to either break shit or waste the time they should spend working

Finally. Thank you. Annoyance be gone... I've blocked the entire control panel for now, but I reckon I'll get some complaints after a while to work out from.
None of the things that I'm currently blocking is anything they have any use for at all, apart from possibly the mouse settings as mentioned. They still have access to the printers though, which is all they need. They are generally only supposed to use certain applications that are installed on the computers, and have access to a home folder.

Damn, I was sure I was going to get the solution for this one!
Do they need access to the full printer settings or do they just use the printers by clicking the print button in an application (which brings up the dialogue where they can do landscape/portrait etc)? Remember that the control panel is all about changing settings, there's no real end user functionality in it. You can kill access to the printers folder without disabling the ability to print. Hell its IT, the whole thing is just smoke and mirrors when you get right down to it

Happy you could get it working! We in the industry know the frustrations.
Ahh, you can have the next IT issue then :}

They have full access to the printer settings, from the start menu. We're using some peculiar, and extremely shitty system, called Safecom, which the users have to add themselves. It's not much of a problem, though, as they can only use the printers they're allowed to. Trying to use something else results in nothing being sent to the queue.
Disabling the control panel I think will only simplify matters for us, as they always tend to occasionally happen upon some settings, while trying to fix something that isn't broken, resulting in a complete uselessness of the computer. The ineptitude of some is astounding, though I suppose you already know that if you're working IT.