Disable charms bar completely

Question

Is there a way to completely disable the Charms Bar.  My problem is that I need to restrict the entry point to the computer settings to the Control Panel only, because we're using a third party application where the proxy settings are exposed through
PC Settings and I can't find a good way of locking them down.  The proxy settings are dynamic so if I force them using a GPO the application stops working.  Works on previous versions of Windows because I can just remove the "connections"
tab from the Internet Control Panel but Windows 8.1 has an additional entry point though PC Settings.
I could just remove access to PC Settings altogether, but that also removes access to Control Panel altogether and users need to be able to change some of the settings.
Also for desktop users I think the Charms Bar is just a distraction, now that they can right-click and shut down, log off etc.
Various people have put stuff up on the web about doing it in Windows 8 but they don't seem to work in Windows 8.1
I think it's bad design to not have a GPO that allows you to lock down PC Settings and Control Panel independently.

Answer 1

Or have a way of killing access to PC Settings without killing access to Control Panel too.
I don't understand what good that would do but you could probably do it with permissions.  Use ProcMon to investigate that possibility.   E.g.  evidently clicking on that button in the Settings charm requires access to
C:\WINDOWS\ImmersiveControlPanel\SystemSettings.exe
So, for a hack, try just inhibiting access to that based on user class.  However, it looks as if that cannot be executed from Desktop, so maybe you just need to find out how to inhibit MUF mode more generally.
In fact, just before that program is launched this value is queried
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\SystemSettings.exe\MitigationOptions
(and a whole bunch more above that.)
Oh neat...
http://ezinearticles.com/?Image-File-Execution-Options---How-to-Hijack-a-Program&id=4088225
(BING search for
    MitigationOptions image file execution windows
<quote>
IFEO is an area of the registry that was created to set various options that tells Windows what to do when an given application is run on your system.
</quote>
Obviously that QWord has its bits defined somewhere but I haven't found out where yet.  I wonder what they all would allow or inhibit?   <eg>
Robert Aldwinckle