Keeping track of users...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
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Guest

Hello!

I will be setting up a Windows XP Professional box for our church in the
next few weeks. Ten plus people will be using it from anything to multimedia
presentations to creating documents. I would rather not create individual
accounts for everyone that may have a reason to use it, but want to keep
track of who uses it when, so if problems develop, I can go back to the last
user.

I think the guest account has the right level of access that we need. Is
there a way to require users to provide their name when they logon?

Thanks a bunch for your attention!

drnate.
 
drnate said:
Hello!

I will be setting up a Windows XP Professional box for our church in the
next few weeks. Ten plus people will be using it from anything to
multimedia
presentations to creating documents. I would rather not create individual
accounts for everyone that may have a reason to use it, but want to keep
track of who uses it when, so if problems develop, I can go back to the
last user.

I think the guest account has the right level of access that we need. Is
there a way to require users to provide their name when they logon?
Click to expand...

The only way you can keep track of logins is to 1) create individual user
accounts; 2) enable auditing. Creating individual user accounts is the "way
to require users to provide their name".

The Guest account should be disabled. It is not a "catch-all" account or
used when one is feeling hospitable. It is a system account that enables
someone without a user account to sit down at the local machine, log on,
and do some work. It runs with elevated privileges and is normally disabled
for security purposes.

I don't think creating 10 users is any big deal, but if you do you could
perhaps create several "generic" accounts such as Marketing, Multimedia,
etc. However, there would be no way to know when different individuals used
the machine except for the honor system. So basically you need to decide if
you're going to forget about auditing and go for belief in your fellow
Church members or if you're going to set up the machine correctly with
individual user accounts and then enable auditing.

Audit User Access of Files, Folders, and Printers in Windows XP -
http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=310399
To add users or groups to the audit list - http://tinyurl.com/lozjc
http://tinyurl.com/5a9o9 - Audit Logon Events - XP Pro

Malke
 
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