Lock Down Destop Revisited

[Mike Fox]

To recap:
I live in a retirement home where there's a computer room for the
residents. We have several user groups with limited privileges, but
residents still change the desktop icons and resolution and this
makes everybody else mad. Is there a way to lock down the desktop
so residents can only launch applcations, , e.g. Internet Explorer,
games, email browser? We're running Win XP Pro.

From your suggestions, I went to Display properties, to the Desktop
tab, clicked Cutomize Desktop. Clicked the Web tab and checked 'Lock
Desktop'.

It appears this only locks a web page as desktop. Resolution can
still be changed and icons can still be moved around. Is there any
way to stop that?

Thanks

Mike

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

See www.dougknox.com, Win XP Utilities, Windows XP Security Console.

 

[andy smart]

To recap:
I live in a retirement home where there's a computer room for the
residents. We have several user groups with limited privileges, but
residents still change the desktop icons and resolution and this
makes everybody else mad. Is there a way to lock down the desktop
so residents can only launch applcations, , e.g. Internet Explorer,
games, email browser? We're running Win XP Pro.

From your suggestions, I went to Display properties, to the Desktop
tab, clicked Cutomize Desktop. Clicked the Web tab and checked 'Lock
Desktop'.

It appears this only locks a web page as desktop. Resolution can
still be changed and icons can still be moved around. Is there any
way to stop that?

Thanks

Mike

Are your computers on a domain? If so a mandatory profile would solve
your problem I think. I'm not sure if you can do something similar on a
stand-alone.

For total machine recovery, whatever, a mate of mine at a sixth form
college swears by Deep Freeze
http://www.faronics.com/index.asp

 

[Alias]

Are your computers on a domain? If so a mandatory profile would solve
your problem I think. I'm not sure if you can do something similar on a
stand-alone.

For total machine recovery, whatever, a mate of mine at a sixth form
college swears by Deep Freeze
http://www.faronics.com/index.asp

Deep Freeze would solve the problem because every time the computer reboots,
Deep Freeze puts it back exactly the way it was when Deep Freeze was
installed and run.

 

[johnsuth]

To recap:
I live in a retirement home where there's a computer room for the
residents. We have several user groups with limited privileges, but
residents still change the desktop icons and resolution and this
makes everybody else mad. Is there a way to lock down the desktop
so residents can only launch applcations, , e.g. Internet Explorer,
games, email browser? We're running Win XP Pro.

From your suggestions, I went to Display properties, to the Desktop
tab, clicked Cutomize Desktop. Clicked the Web tab and checked 'Lock
Desktop'.

It appears this only locks a web page as desktop. Resolution can
still be changed and icons can still be moved around. Is there any
way to stop that?

I tried the free product mentioned elsewhere and it was useless.

I tried a commercial product from an "internet only" company who hid behind layers of URLs. A schoolboy demolished that desktop in the space of 40 minutes, so that product was useless too.

It would be cheaper in your case to allow users to have their own logon, password and desktop, but be aware that they will take the password with them when they die.

 

[Mike Fox]

The sheer number of individual accounts would overwhelm us. However,
someone recommeded:

For total machine recovery, a mate swears by Deep Freeze @ http://www.faronics.com/index.asp

I look up Deep Freeze, and it looks good. Anyone have experience with
it?

Thanks

Mike

 

[Malke]

The sheer number of individual accounts would overwhelm us. However,
someone recommeded:


I look up Deep Freeze, and it looks good. Anyone have experience with
it?

Yes. We use it in our school lab. Deep Freeze is a well-known and
respected program.

Malke