Hide Site templates and List Templates in SharePoint

In my SharePoint Farm, I wanted to disable certain site templates in site creation page.

Here is the technique for hiding a Site template in SharePoint 2007:
There are XML manifest files found on the file system of the web front end.

•     Look for the file webtemp.xml,webtempsps.xml,etc  in “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\1033\XML\“

•     Make a backup of this files you are modifying
•     Open the file in notepad and look for the site template you want to hide
•     Change Hidden=”FALSE” into Hidden=”TRUE” (case sensitive) and save the file

•     Do an IISRESET

This will hide the specific site template from the list of templates available when you create a site.

Hide SharePoint List or Library Templates

Same way, you can hide the list template in SharePoint 2007 too, here is how:

• First find the template/feature you want to modify in “web server extensions\12\TEMPLATE\FEATURES”
• If you want to be able to show or hide the list through the Site Features, do the following:
• Make a backup copy of feature.xml
• Open the xml file in notepad and change Hidden=”TRUE” into Hidden=”FALSE” (case sensitive) and save the file
• Do an IISRESET

If you want to hide the list all together, do the following:

•  Open the sub-folder named “ListTemplates”
•  Make a backup copy of the .xml file (good practice)
• Open the xml file in notepad and add this line somewhere around the Type or BaseType line: Hidden=”TRUE” (case sensitive)
• Do an IISRESET