How to un-lock down a user account

[Kevin Hughes]

Good Morning:

I have 18 XP Pro machines in a school environment (with domain). After
installing the programs we wanted, I locked down some of the registry keys
to keep the kids from installing/deleting things.

Since then, someone better equipped than myself (can use group policies,
etc) has offered to help me out. He's creating a roaming profile, etc for
consistant look/feel, but I'm finding that un-locking things is not working
out so hot.

Can someone offer a strategy to either reset the registry permissions on an
account to their defaults, or even how to delete the user account and re-add
it. This user account is classified as "restricted", but even that let them
tinker with too much stuff, hence the lockdown in the first place.

TIA for any pearls of wisdom:

Kevin

 

[Steven L Umbach]

It is not a good idea to make registry changes without documenting them. You
could try to use a registry snaphot program to compare registry hives on a
clean install to one of your computers but this can be tedious and you would
probably want to look for different values. Such a program would be Regsnap
or Advanced Registry Tracer [see link below]. Also try searhing Google for
the restriction you enabled and you will probably find the info you need as
in registry start menu , etc. Be sure to include registry in the search.
Since you probably applied the restrictions to HKLM or HKCU deleting the
user account would not help.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/advregtracer.html

An in place upgrade/repair installation of the operating system should
restore default registry values and preserve applications and data but will
require that the service pack be reinstalled first [in not slipsreamed into
the install disk] and then all critical security updates be installed.

Group Policy is the way to go and keep in mind that in XP Pro you can use
Software Restriction Policies to lockdown what applications a user can
install and run on their computer. --- Steve