Public computers....

[HDCBandit]

Just wondering about the puters at some public places. I know that it's for security purposes and all, but I was wondering what program that it is that does that.
The reason I ask this is cause i was at the public library and it was totally locked up and very secure...or that's what it seemed. What program do they use to do that? Just wondering. Cause I like it and might want to put it on my puter.

Thanks

[Snurfen]

If you have a reasonably well setup Active Directory structure, you can lock down just about anything. Prevent IE access, disable the keyboard, only allow a limited set of programmes or commands to work etc.

When we get bored in work, we pick on someone who is being a bit stroppy with us and selectively disable various things on their pc's. It's great to listen to them swear and curse at the pc.

Oh the joys of having sys admin privilidges!

ps, James just reminded me about the old "change someones wallpaper to make them look like a pervert" routine. Always brings a chuckle to the MIS team!

[renegade600]

Who knows what the particular library is using but winxp pro can be very secure.

[degsy]

What restrictions were in place?

If you have XP Pro or W2K then you can use the Local Security Policy to set many retrictions.

If not, you can use Tweaking programs to achieve alot.

[HDCBandit]

Yeah they were using XP pro. The things that didn't work were the right click on the mouse, and the start button, it went directly to the shutdown screen if you clicked it lol. So i'm sure that they had changed some things. It's just that i've never seen a puter that locked down before...to where you couldn't even see the folders or anything. They had all the progs on the desktop already to use so that you wouldn't be able to get into mischeif.

[Phynos]

If memory serves... It seems like there's often some sort of a "hotspot" that will pull up some of the more... technical parts of the operating system. Like the Control Pane or "My Computer";).

It seems like one such "hotspot" for the Walmart Digital Picture computers was the right most part of the text box that told you what to do. It's basically an invisible button. It doesn't do a whole lot of good to know about it though because stuff like that is usually password protected. Also, "OS" for the digital pictures computers is either not windows, or else a program running on top of windows.

[rockboy]

Public access computers like at Walmart and the library probably use commercial software designed specifically to provide access to certain functions. If you want to look around for more info then search for kiosk software.