Blocking programs from running using group policies.

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Guest

I work at a school. Many of the students are using Firefox to get around the
web filter proxy that IE uses to block non-educational/adult sites. I was
wondering if there was any way to block the program "Firefox.exe" from
running on the Windows XP client computers? Can it be done with group
policy's? I am in a Windows 2000 Active Directory to Windows XP environment.
 
Ruphus Elderbeer said:
I work at a school. Many of the students are using Firefox to get around
the
web filter proxy that IE uses to block non-educational/adult sites. I was
wondering if there was any way to block the program "Firefox.exe" from
running on the Windows XP client computers? Can it be done with group
policy's? I am in a Windows 2000 Active Directory to Windows XP
environment.
Click to expand...

Yes.

The subarea of Group Policy (in Computer->Windows Settings->Security) is:

Software Restriction Policies

Software Restriction Policies allow you to block (or allow) programs by
several
criteria or rules, including:

Hash-A cryptographic fingerprint of the file
Certificate-A software publisher certificate used to digitally sign a
file
Path-The local or universal naming convention (UNC) path of where the
file is stored.
Zone-Internet Zone

"Path" is usually the easiest to understand and get started using.

Take a look, ask if you need more help, and/or search Google for:

[ "Software Restriction Policies" site:microsoft.com ]

One trick is to only allow software to run from selected locations,
e.g., Program Files and Windows directory BUT disallow users from
writing to those areas. This may not be perfect but goes a long way
to preventing unwanted programs from running.

Be sure to test carefully because you can easily make a system nearly
unusable.
 
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