Administrative Control Over PC

ryansace

Hello,

Bascially, my Gf stays at home all day clogging up my laptop downloading any old thing she sees (Even Internet Browsers, Toolbars etc etc) and I would like to set the laptop up to make it impossible for her to download things.

I know there are user accounts where i can give her limited access, but all i manage to do is make her not an admin, i cant find any other options.

Here is what i would like to do:

• Block downloads
• Block X-rated sites (!!!!!!, music download sites if possible, etc)

That is all i can think of at the moment, I think also not allowing her access to MsConfig etc would e a huge bonus. anyone know of any admin tools to do this? Or can it be done in XP without any extra software?

Thank you,

Ryan

theallpowerful

I've never tried this, but you can download it for free and if it does what it says on the tin it should solve all your problems:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/whatis/default.mspx#Restrict

Let us know if it works!

ryansace

Hey, thanks for the idea the software looks good, however can't install because my C: is in FAT32 format, not NTFS format as it requires. I tried installing and it says wrong format. Is it possible to change this format?

k9387

Sounds what you want is one of the many parental control programs that are available. Have you tried explaning things to her though? Many computers I have had to sort out the user didn't realise why their computer was getting clogged up.

theallpowerful - nice bit of software there, havn't seen that before.

swift_gti

ryansace wrote: »

Hey, thanks for the idea the software looks good, however can't install because my C: is in FAT32 format, not NTFS format as it requires. I tried installing and it says wrong format. Is it possible to change this format?

You certainly can, dead easy to do. Just click on 'Start | Run' type in 'cmd' and hit enter. You should be presented with a command window (black window with text) with this Window focused you need to type in 'convert C: /fs:ntfs' hit enter and you'll be told you need to reboot, it'll then convert the filesystem to NTFS before XP starts back up.

ryansace

I googled it and it started talking about 512kb clusters, so I'll sort that out first then do that.

Thanks for all the help everyone :-)

theallpowerful

k9387 wrote: »

theallpowerful - nice bit of software there, havn't seen that before.

IT dept at work are in the process of transferring from Deep Freeze (which does the same thing but costs extra) to it... The only reason I know is because I try to foster good relationships with IT, and endure hours of the techies telling me about stuff in return for them fixing my stuff a lot faster than they would anybody else! They also ignore the fact I use the internet for personal use contrary to the user policy

Tolerating dull ICT conversation is a small price to pay for up to date knowledge, rapid response, and unmetered 100Mbit access to the web :T

coolhandjase

One of the easiest ways would be to enable the guest account on the PC as your machine is in a workgroup.

This account has limited access and you:

• Cannot install software or hardware, but can access programs that have already been installed on the computer.
• Cannot change the guest account type.
• Can change the guest account picture.

mar<

There are settings you can get at by running gpedit.msc, that will give you a lot of control for free. I've found restricting downloads is bypassable though, and if you use firefox that isn't restricted. It is complex and contains very many settings to configure, not for the feint hearted.

Steady State is excellent, and is a friendly front end to the above. I'd certainly reccomend it. For extreme cases you can use disk protection to completely erase all changes on reboot - a lot like Deep Freeze the commercial program does, only for free. this might be your best bet if you want to remove all traces of your GFs activities. You can just enable it when you want to, and leave it off when you want to use the PC.