Turn internet access off

Martin_the_Unjust

I know a severely disabled adult with an acquired brain injury.

One of her few pleasures is typing letters in notepad and playing patience on her PC (running windows 10)

She is a vulnerable adult and as such it is unsafe for her to access the internet.

I have tried various methods of trying to block her PC from accessing the net but it seems that every time we visit her the PC has managed to connect to the care home WiFi, I’m not sure if that is down to Windows or ‘helpful’ other residents or staff member.

Is there some way I can permanently block her PC from accessing the net?

Thank you

Flugelhorn

Have you got power of attorney for her? or has someone else got this? I would have thought that for an adult it would only be someone like that who could completely forbid someone connecting to the net - or is it the lady herself who doesn't want to be connected?

All comes down to who are the people caring for her and what your relationship is to her and what has been discussed 

Martin_the_Unjust

Power of attorney is in place and I am assisting as requested.

Exodi

Probably the easiest way that jumps to mind is to just disable the wireless driver (uninstalling it would probably cause Windows to reinstall it when the computer restarts).

I don't know how computer savvy you are, or what version of windows the computer is on, but if you go to 'control panel', navigate to the 'network and sharing centre', then 'change adapter settings' and then right click the WiFi and select 'Disable'.

Obviously if the care-home staff are somewhat clued up, they might know to go in and re-enable it.

facade

If it isn't one of these "unfixable" glued together laptops, just remove the wireless card, then no-one can be "helpful" by enabling it.

DullGreyGuy

You would need to have two accounts on the computer, one for you as a "Parent" and one for your associate as a "Child". You can then use the parental controls for example to stop them running any of the installed web browsers or email clients etc.

As long as none of the staff or residents have access to the Parental account then they cannot undo the settings

Flugelhorn

Martin_the_Unjust said:

Power of attorney is in place and I am assisting as requested.

that's fine - hopefully you can find a solution! I suppose the most basic is a note on the computer saying not to connect it

Martin_the_Unjust

Exodi said:

Probably the easiest way that jumps to mind is to just disable the wireless driver (uninstalling it would probably cause Windows to reinstall it when the computer restarts).

I don't know how computer savvy you are, or what version of windows the computer is on, but if you go to 'control panel', navigate to the 'network and sharing centre', then 'change adapter settings' and then right click the WiFi and select 'Disable'.

Obviously if the care-home staff are somewhat clued up, they might know to go in and re-enable it.

Already tried that, I’ve even disabled WiFi using a command line prompt

Martin_the_Unjust

facade said:

If it isn't one of these "unfixable" glued together laptops, just remove the wireless card, then no-one can be "helpful" by enabling it.

Hmmm that might be an idea although it is an all in one machine.

If I do remove the wireless card is it likely windows will keep chugging away looking for access or will it give up and behave itself?

facade

Martin_the_Unjust said:

facade said:

If it isn't one of these "unfixable" glued together laptops, just remove the wireless card, then no-one can be "helpful" by enabling it.

Hmmm that might be an idea although it is an all in one machine.

If I do remove the wireless card is it likely windows will keep chugging away looking for access or will it give up and behave itself?

I just get a task bar icon that says there is no connection. No doubt there will be pop-ups from games and microsoft apps complaining that they can't push adverts/spy on you.

Veteransaver

If you open the laptop up you may be able to locate the wireless driver and physically disconnect it.
Thought that makes it a pain if you need to update it or something.
If you disable it in device manager it should stay disabled unless someone quite savvy goes in and renables it.