Setting up permissions

[Guest]

I have 2 PCs connected by wireless network. Both use XP home. One also has a
spare hard drive with XP pro. All use NTFS.

I set up user accounts on the one my child uses. I made an admin account
and a child account.

My goal is to make it so the child can not use AIM on the child account.

I have tried 3 methods:

First, I told the firewall to deny AIM. Did not do anything. AIM works fine.

Second I tried

1. Double-click My Computer on the desktop.
2. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options.
3. Click the View tab, and then select the Use Simple File Sharing
(Recommended) check box to turn on Simple File Sharing. (Clear this check box
to turn off this feature.)

That simple file sharing box does not exist on any of the systems.

Third I tried

shrpubw I chose the AIM folder and chose custom and set share options to
deny.

All that did was make AIM start at bootup!

I was using the admin account to try these. When I went to the child
account, AIM still loads.

Any advice?

Any software package I can buy to make this easier?

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Simple file sharing can only be disabled on XP Pro. You need to set deny
permissions on the executable used by AIM for the user or the whole folder.
Share permissions only manage a users network access to a share. See the
link below on how to manage NTFS permissions. Also you can block access via
a firewall such as Zone Alarm but not the Windows Firewall. ZA allows you to
configure application rules and there is a free for personal use version.
Ultimately that may the best solution as users have a way of finding other
software to do what they want and some can be installed by a regular account
by installing totally in the user's profile where the user by default has
full control permissions. . --- Steve

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308418
http://www.snapfiles.com/Freeware/security/fwfirewall.html --- link to
Zone Alarm

 

[Guest]

BY AIM I assume you mean AOL Messenger?

IF so, file-sharing has nothing to do with this.

AIM uses a specific firewall port (Port 5190, IIRC) however the inbuilt
firewall doesn't have any capability to block outgoing connections, only
incoming. That is why it still works. To block it you need a better firewall,
or else a router with port-blocking controls. However, both of these will
block AIM for ALL users of the computer.

The other option, if you still need AIM yourself, might be to simply remove
all shortcuts to the program from their desktop, and just have ashortcut on
your own. Depends how computer-savvy your child is, of course.