Evidentally Windows XP’s Software Restriction policy implementation is broken. Some of my users have discovered that by crashing Explorer they can remove the restrictions completely. That’s right, they can run anything from anywhere. I run a high school network, so we have some pretty tight restrictions normally.
All that needs be done is to try to read a damaged floppy disk. While it’s struggling, close My Computer, and boom. Explorer crashes, restarts, and restrictions are gone. I haven’t been able to find any reference to this problem anywhere.
Is there a fix for this? Does MS know about it? (I’ve tried to tell them, but I’m not paying $99 for the priviledge of a ‘problem report’) Is there a decent way of reporting bugs to MS? Is my only option crippling my workstations (disabling removable media, or preventing Explorer restarting after crash)?