Vista -- blocking control panel

[DisneyDog]

I am in charge of the computers at my public library. I have 4 Vista computers that are on a separate network from the others. They are simply logged in to a wireless network. Nothing fancy there about security. I need to find a way to lock down the control panel. I would love to password protect it. I don't understand why Microsoft requires an administrative password for just about everything except getting into the control panel. Makes no sense to me. Someone keeps changing the regional and language options to Chinese.

Anyway, anyone know how to put security on the control panel?

[rorpage]

You could set everyone up to log in as a user account that has parental controls preventing things like that. With Vista it's really easy to do. Check this (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/parental-controls.aspx) out from Microsoft.

Hope that helps!

[DizneyRox]

Probably check into the policy editor to close off a lot of those things. Everytime a user logs in the policy would make the changes necessary and brings things back to normal.

Also check out Windows SteadyState which will proably solve about 98% of your problems.

From Microsoft's site:


Windows SteadyState in Action

Depending on the purpose and requirements of your shared computers, different features and configuration options of Windows SteadyState prove particularly valuable. Click the scenario below that most closely matches your situation.

In the classroom
Classrooms and computer labs can offer groups of users a consistent and reliable computer learning environment more efficiently, while increasing the productivity of the teaching staff.

In an Internet café
Internet cafés, kiosks, and other businesses offering commercial access to shared computers can help increase customer satisfaction while reducing computer down time, administrative costs, and total cost of ownership.

At the library
Libraries and community technology centers can help protect computers against tampering cost effectively. They can customize shared user profiles to meet the needs of different patrons.

[DisneyDog]

We have Vista Business, which I don't believe has the parental controls. I looked into it last night.

I just tried the Steady State. It seems pretty easy to use. However, I then had trouble with restarting the computer. It went into a disk scan and then reverted to an earlier state, thus deleting the installation of Steady State. Ugh! I just wasted an hour on that. I'll give it another try, another time. Thanks :)

[DizneyRox]

Well, we ARE talking about Microsoft products here. ;)