Set a permanent volume for a computer

[Solartide]

What I want to do is lock the volume of the computer. Set it at, say, 80%
volume permanently.

I am aware you can hide the volume control from the system tray in the
control panel, but someone can go to the control panel and enable it again.

I know you can use the group policy editor to remove the control panel or
some of it's components. But those changes can be undone as well. Where
there's a will there's a way they say.

Someone can use a NT password reset cd, make a new admin account, use that
to get into gpedit.msc, enable control panel, so on and so forth down the
line. Yes, then my next step is to disable booting from cd, but you get the
picture, it's an endless line.

You see, I'm trying to manage a few hundred computers that are being used by
thousands of people. And there is always a handful of people who want to
mess things up. Then a less tech savvy person comes along and complains that
the sound on the computer is broken, when it is just muted.

So in the end, to reiterate, what I want is to set a permanent volume for
the computers, then go through down the line to try to prevent someone from
reverting the changes.

Now I tried Google, plenty of "free" software that I wouldn't touch with a
ten foot pole, and ironically, one person who has a problem- their volume is
locked to a set amount.

This tells me that there is a way to do this, I just don't know how, and my
google-fu isn't strong enough to get it.

If anyone out there can help me out with this, that would be terrific.

 

[Bob I]

Good luck in that.

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

What I want to do is lock the volume of the computer. Set it at, say, 80%
volume permanently.

I am aware you can hide the volume control from the system tray in the
control panel, but someone can go to the control panel and enable it
again.

I know you can use the group policy editor to remove the control panel or
some of it's components. But those changes can be undone as well. Where
there's a will there's a way they say.

Someone can use a NT password reset cd, make a new admin account, use that
to get into gpedit.msc, enable control panel, so on and so forth down the
line. Yes, then my next step is to disable booting from cd, but you get
the
picture, it's an endless line.

You see, I'm trying to manage a few hundred computers that are being used
by
thousands of people. And there is always a handful of people who want to
mess things up. Then a less tech savvy person comes along and complains
that
the sound on the computer is broken, when it is just muted.

So in the end, to reiterate, what I want is to set a permanent volume for
the computers, then go through down the line to try to prevent someone
from
reverting the changes.

Now I tried Google, plenty of "free" software that I wouldn't touch with a
ten foot pole, and ironically, one person who has a problem- their volume
is
locked to a set amount.

This tells me that there is a way to do this, I just don't know how, and
my
google-fu isn't strong enough to get it.

If anyone out there can help me out with this, that would be terrific.

Windows SteadyState is probably your best bet:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx.
As you say, everything else can be broken by someone who knows his way about
Windows and who has physical access to the machines.

 

[Solartide]

SsteadyState looked promising, I must admit, downloaded it, installed it, and from what I can tell it's just a simplified version of group policy editor that's less powerful, but has something like Deep Freeze with it.

Didn't find anything there that can set a volume control.