Restricting Users

[Duane]

Hello,

I was wondering if as an Administrator, can you restrict users from
modifying or gaining access to certain areas of the OS, such as the task
bar, wallpaper, sceensaver, etc.?

Thaks for your help?

 

[KWE]

Yes, it can be done. You can use group policy on domain or stand-alone
computers, but I prefer to modify the policy-related registry keys
directly. See www.winguides.com for a lot more information about these
registry keys.

If you collect a set of registry keys into a .reg file, you can "merge"
this file into the account when you setup the account (and it is an
admin account). Or you can use the reg.exe command in a command prompt
or batch file. (You can also merge .reg files from a batch file using
regedit.exe or reg.exe in XP.) Then you can change the account type to
limited using the "net localgroups" command.

Specifically, you can set the wallpaper and restrict users from
changing it, you can disable or restrict the screensaver and
screensaver password, and there are various restrictions available for
the taskbar, such as disabling the context menu.

 

[Malke]

Hello,

I was wondering if as an Administrator, can you restrict users from
modifying or gaining access to certain areas of the OS, such as the
task bar, wallpaper, sceensaver, etc.?

Thaks for your help?

Certainly, but how you do it will depend on what version of XP you have.
With XP Pro, you can assign very fine-grained permissions and user
environments through Group Policy. For questions about using Group
Policy, post here:
microsoft.public.windows.group_policy

If you have XP Home, you can use Doug Knox's Security Console, or the MS
Shared Computer Toolkit, or other third-party programs.

http://www.dougknox.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sharedaccess/default.mspx

Malke