Locking Down WinXP?

[LoopyJuice]

Hey all, basically I have the task of keeping a room full of pcs at school under control.

I need either some software or a way to do the following:

Restrict Wallpaper/Screensaver/Resolution changing
Prevent people deleting/creating desktop icons (if possible)
Limit the downloading of particular filetypes, e.g. .mp3, .exe, .zip etc
Prevent people accessing the Internet Tools options (to stop people changing the proxy address or lan settings)

Oh, all systems are running WinXP Home and are on a Novell network, logging into XP on a limited account.

Thanks

[pedro]

You need either

1.SiteKiosk from www.sitekosk.com. They have special discounts for schools. We use the software in the hospitality market for locking down internet terminals
2. Adhaero Desk. This is a powerful lockdown tool.http://www.adhaeroutilities.com/
Both could do the job, but take fundamentally different routes

[pedro]

should have read www.sitekiosk.com

[LoopyJuice]

They both look like quality software but I was looking for something either free or some registry entries I can play with, I suppose I can play with poledit...

[BlackTower]

If it's XP Pro then you can lock down the desktop using local policies and do something with it so they dont apply to the administrator as they apply to all users usually with local policies ina standalone environment. Theres a KB article somewhere on it.

[ingouk]

to prevent people downloading mp3, zips, exe's, etc configure a proxy server. If you make that proxt transparent it will cache everything that goes via port 80. no need to specify a proxy in IE.
have a look at www.clarkconnect.org. it has a proxy that can be made transparent and has some other settings to prevent surfing pron, etc.

[Paul Adams]

Novell NetWare is your key to most of what you want to do.

Check out user profiles, and in particular MANDATORY profiles.
While you might not be able to stop users changing certain things like wallpaper, resolution, an adding icons, etc., by using mandatory profiles it stops those being remembered between sessions.

(I assume the users are logging in individually, not a generic account for the PC?)

I won't go into great detail as to what user and workstation profiles can do for you, there's a week-long training course that this is part of, so it's quite a lot to take in
(Even if a generic user account is used on those PCs, you can use a workstation profile to harden the OS.)


To prevent downloading of certain file types, use a proxy server to connect your clients to the Internet.
Novell have BorderManager which authenticates users based on NDS credentials so is a good partner for a NetWare environment, however its interface leave a lot to be desired.
(Basically in the proxy rules you would have a DENY rule for *.mp3;*.zip etc then a default accept rule to allow all else.)

I don't believe there is a way to prevent the client from downloading those file types, though I might be wrong.

An alternative would be to use a passive content filter solution, these sent a "reset connection" back to the client when they detect something that's against company/school policy, and the client thinks the request was fulfilled (but gets no data).

Unfortunately, I don't know of any free solutions to that particular problem.

[BoB_DoG]

aye, the novell stuff is supposed to be V good at what it does (well thats what my mate who works with it told me).

[Agent]

X-setup will also allow loads of registry changes, its free and has plugins

Just google it

[BlackTower]

If you want to make a profile mandatory you just rename ntuser.dat to ntuser.man .