How to make Windows inaccessible from my software user?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola
  • Start date Start date
M

Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola

Hi all,
The following are my need:
1. When a PC starts, my software should come up directly without any user
interaction.
2. Only my software will be accessible to the user and they will not be able
to access anything from Windows - nothing at all.
3. A super user can access the software as well as the full windows

The windows OS may be windows 2k, windows XP or windows 2k3.

Temp solution:
I can place my software in start-up and will make it full screen, without
any control buttons like minimize, maximize, close, resize etc so user will
see always my software at start up.
Problems: Some one can restart PC and in Safe-mode or other options they can
use and they may access windows and if I am disabling all these options
some-how then when we need PC access for maintenance or some other
administrative purpose then it will not be available to me. So, for that I
will create a super user account in my software through which super user can
access the window.
Also, if I make Alt + Ctrl + Del, Alt + Tab, Ctrl + Shift + Esc, Windows +
D, Windows + E, Windows + R etc keys disable then I will need to manipulate
all these keys individually and may be there will be lot more.

So I need some way through which I can restrict the normal user to access
anything from windows and they will only be able to access my software
only - nothing else and a super user can access the software as well as
normal windows access too - and all I want to do programmatically and if
possible using only C# - but its not hard requirement - I can use other
languages too.

I heard about user - security policies but I don't know any programmatic way
to work with it, also dont know what and how to do....

Any pointers/help or your guidance will be very much helpful to me

Thanks in Advance,

Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola
"Empower yourself...."
 
Please do not cross-post to so many groups, especially those
irrelevants to your question!

Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola a écrit :
Hi all,
The following are my need:
1. When a PC starts, my software should come up directly without any user
interaction.
2. Only my software will be accessible to the user and they will not be able
to access anything from Windows - nothing at all.
3. A super user can access the software as well as the full windows
Click to expand...

- Replace the default shell (explorer.exe) with your app, which should
be a fullscreen graphical app. See registry key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell.

- Provide a way in your soft for the super-user to launch the "usual"
explorer.exe if it needs too.

- Forget about hooking CTRL+ALT+SUPPR : It is not intended to be done,
and is is a bad idea from asecurity point of view anyway. On the other
hand, what you can do is disable the task manager for non-admin users
with group policy.

Arnaud
MVP - VC
 
Mahesh,

What you are looking for is a kiosk app. I would do a google search on
it (and maybe windows as well) and see what that turns up. It should give
you some information you are looking for.

Hope this helps.
 
Try this out. It's in VB but I'm sure you can figure it out.
http://vbaccelerator.com/home/VB/Code/Libraries/Windows/Creating_New_Desktops/article.asp


Nicholas Paldino said:
Mahesh,

What you are looking for is a kiosk app. I would do a google search on
it (and maybe windows as well) and see what that turns up. It should give
you some information you are looking for.

Hope this helps.

--
- Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]
- (e-mail address removed)

Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola said:
Hi all,
The following are my need:
1. When a PC starts, my software should come up directly without any user
interaction.
2. Only my software will be accessible to the user and they will not be
able
to access anything from Windows - nothing at all.
3. A super user can access the software as well as the full windows

The windows OS may be windows 2k, windows XP or windows 2k3.

Temp solution:
I can place my software in start-up and will make it full screen, without
any control buttons like minimize, maximize, close, resize etc so user
will
see always my software at start up.
Problems: Some one can restart PC and in Safe-mode or other options they
can
use and they may access windows and if I am disabling all these options
some-how then when we need PC access for maintenance or some other
administrative purpose then it will not be available to me. So, for that
I
will create a super user account in my software through which super user
can
access the window.
Also, if I make Alt + Ctrl + Del, Alt + Tab, Ctrl + Shift + Esc, Windows
+
D, Windows + E, Windows + R etc keys disable then I will need to
manipulate
all these keys individually and may be there will be lot more.

So I need some way through which I can restrict the normal user to access
anything from windows and they will only be able to access my software
only - nothing else and a super user can access the software as well as
normal windows access too - and all I want to do programmatically and if
possible using only C# - but its not hard requirement - I can use other
languages too.

I heard about user - security policies but I don't know any programmatic
way
to work with it, also dont know what and how to do....

Any pointers/help or your guidance will be very much helpful to me

Thanks in Advance,

Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola
"Empower yourself...."
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Any thoughts on if this works on PDA devices (PPC and/or WinCE)? I gave it a
quick try and got some errors - chopped up your code to remove all the
unsupported stuff I could find and then got an unsupported exception in
CreateDesktop().

Thanks

Rocky said:
Try this out. It's in VB but I'm sure you can figure it out.
http://vbaccelerator.com/home/VB/Code/Libraries/Windows/Creating_New_Desktops/article.asp


Nicholas Paldino said:
Mahesh,

What you are looking for is a kiosk app. I would do a google search
on it (and maybe windows as well) and see what that turns up. It should
give you some information you are looking for.

Hope this helps.

--
- Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]
- (e-mail address removed)

Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola said:
Hi all,
The following are my need:
1. When a PC starts, my software should come up directly without any
user
interaction.
2. Only my software will be accessible to the user and they will not be
able
to access anything from Windows - nothing at all.
3. A super user can access the software as well as the full windows

The windows OS may be windows 2k, windows XP or windows 2k3.

Temp solution:
I can place my software in start-up and will make it full screen,
without
any control buttons like minimize, maximize, close, resize etc so user
will
see always my software at start up.
Problems: Some one can restart PC and in Safe-mode or other options they
can
use and they may access windows and if I am disabling all these options
some-how then when we need PC access for maintenance or some other
administrative purpose then it will not be available to me. So, for that
I
will create a super user account in my software through which super user
can
access the window.
Also, if I make Alt + Ctrl + Del, Alt + Tab, Ctrl + Shift + Esc, Windows
+
D, Windows + E, Windows + R etc keys disable then I will need to
manipulate
all these keys individually and may be there will be lot more.

So I need some way through which I can restrict the normal user to
access
anything from windows and they will only be able to access my software
only - nothing else and a super user can access the software as well as
normal windows access too - and all I want to do programmatically and if
possible using only C# - but its not hard requirement - I can use other
languages too.

I heard about user - security policies but I don't know any programmatic
way
to work with it, also dont know what and how to do....

Any pointers/help or your guidance will be very much helpful to me

Thanks in Advance,

Mahesh Devjibhai Dhola
"Empower yourself...."
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Mahesh said:
Also, if I make Alt + Ctrl + Del, Alt + Tab, Ctrl + Shift + Esc, Windows +
D, Windows + E, Windows + R etc keys disable then I will need to manipulate
all these keys individually and may be there will be lot more.
Click to expand...

I can strongly recommend KCSDK from Meliora Software, which does exactly
what you want. I have very good experience with it (with a kiosk
application that we developed). It can disable any key combination
(Ctrl+Esc, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Alt+Tab):

http://www.meliorasoft.com/kits/keyboard/index.php

Tom
 
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