Setting up XP for "Public" use

G

Guest

Hi,

I have been asked to add a room containing 3 PCs to the LAN of a local
charity. The PCs will be for visitors to use and give them internet
access plus standard Office apps. Whilst I am happy on how to configure
the LAN to allow this and no more - I have never set up XP for shared,
public, use. We are only talking about maybe a dozen individuals a year.

My first thought was that they each get given a hard disk in a caddy,
which then becomes "theirs" (although it remains in the centre). There
is then no way that anything they do could affect any other user of the
room. They could even keep their own stuff on the hard disk and it would
be there for them, session after session. The caddy would have to be
tied to a particularly machine as, inevitably, all three machines are
very different makes and models. So there could be a clash if two people
with MachineA disks turned up - even if machines B and C were free...

I have got management to agree that each visitor will have to be given
and use a unique ID and password, so that some meaningful logging of
what they do can be kept.

As an alternative, I was thinking of using Powerquest's Boot Manager, to
set up multiple partitions on each drive - so that all partitions but
theirs are hidden. But that would only support a very limited number of
users.

But, would be possible to set up XP to similarly protect one user from
the activities of the others?

I could add a 4th machine, say running NT server, to act as a domain
controller, so that accounts would be valid on any machine.. I have a
spare NT server licence and a suitable machine.

Any pointers, much appreciated.
 

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