Is there a technique in which you can lock down certain functions in software on Windows 7 and/or 10. For example after I set file paths in WinSCP I could then lock the registry where WinSCP changes are stored, therefore locking out general users from being able to change those saved settings in WinSCP?
Not really no but you could have a logon script that applies the specific registry settings on login. Any changes wouldn’t be persistent.
system settings , user permissions and a strong admin password