Limiting users

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bobby
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Bobby

I have given my kids separate user accounts on my PC but I don't want them
to be able to install software on the PC. Standard accounts permit this so
is there some way of limiting these types of account to prevent them install
their crap on the PC?

Bobby
 
Standard users cannot install software for all users. Assuming you have all
administrative accounts password-protected of course.

If software supports per-user installation, they can install it for them
self only and it will not affect any other users. Or they can use so-called
"portable" software which does not require installation at all.

In addition to password-protecting all administrative acounts and making
user accounts standard (a.k.a. Limited or LUA), you can also use Parental
Controls to limit activities that your children can perform.
 
I am guessing that with your last phrase "install crap on the PC" you are
talking about kids who are not very young. Because with very young kids,
besides the array of parental control software, this is a decent way to
control that:

FAQs MSFT Shared Computer Toolkit
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sharedaccess/faq.mspx

Download
www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=7256D456-E3DA-42EA-857D-92B716077A84&displaylang=en

If they're "older", they are going to find a way around this.

In Vista, though as Andre says, the users are limited by default, unless you
go to the security tab and extend their permissions or you could do this in
Administrative Tools to allow downloading for them or at gpedit.msc or
secpol.msc I suspect. You could also add software restriction policies
through Group Policy Editor (type gpedit.msc in run box).

You can do this at secpol.msc or gpedit.msc Security Settings>Software
restriction Policies>Action

Additionally, I notice that on the Group Policy Editor at User
Configuration>Administrative Templates>Windows Components>Windows
Installer>Always install with elevated privileges you could control this as
well.

See MMC help for further detail.

CH
 
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