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Securing Windows

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by paradox 42 1 view

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how can i secure windows 98 so students can't play with the registry? we have WORD 97 & 2000 installed on all of the computers and from what i can see useing VBA you can get around most lock downs. the registry can't be lock full because of programs like kixtart. can anyone help?

13 replies

by darkchilde

Do they access the registry via the regedit program? If they do, just delete the regedit program on those machines, saving a copy for yourself. Another solution would be to make the registry files system.dat and user.dat as well as the regedit program unavailable to everyone but admins through policies.

by paradox 42

the registry is locked down so using regedit is out of the question. but kix32.exe can read and write to the reg(even when its locked down), so the computer can be unlocked. using the shell command in VBA you can run command.com and then any RestrictRun lock downs are usless.

by paradox 42

the registry is locked down so using regedit is out of the question. but kix32.exe can read and write to the reg(even when its locked down), so the computer can be unlocked. using the shell command in VBA you can run command.com and then any RestrictRun lock downs are usless.

by buffalodan

don't know if this is an option for you but....

I run a training lab at a university, I don't even bother securing the win98 machines, (next to impossible anyways), instead, i have images, locked down on seperate drives, for each system, let thecurious hackers do what they wish, i record their movements, if they do something innappropriate on the campus network, they are reported for abuse, and could loose their campus ID. Should a student render a system unusable, well, they can no longerparticipate.
They are warned of this when they logon.
Once a week, the systems are re-imaged using ghost. Back the way I WANT THEM. end of story...

by paradox 42

thats kind of how we do it now, but doing a clone takes up to much of our time. if we could secure the computers more we wouldn't need to do as many clones.

by paradox 42

thats kind of how we do it now, but doing a clone takes up to much of our time. if we could secure the computers more we wouldn't need to do as many clones.

by jparade

Royalton High School uses a program called Fortres. It is a great program. We paid $500 for a site-license. It is available through www.fortres.com as well as through Paul@fortres.com You can get more info from either of those places also. Hope thishelps, JAKE

by paradox 42

I've already figired out how to do what profiles can do without needing to use profiles (direct modification of the registry through logon scripts). so this is of no real help.

by jpomposelli

If the registry is the only thing you want them not to do, you can use the PolEdit program that comes with 98. You have to install it from the CD.
1. Click Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel
2. Click the Windows Setup Tab
3. Click Have Disk
4. Browse the Win98 CD to find PolEdit. I believe it is in the Tools folder, but I don't remember.
5. Once it is installed there is a new icon in the windows directory (PolEdit)
6. Click on PolEdit in the windows directory
The next instructions are from memory, and names maybe alittle wrong.
7. Click Open Registry (third item) from the File menu (or where the File menu would be)
8. Click on the Icon for the User (person)
9. I believe in System, there is an option to limit access to the registry.

If you want to completely lock the machine, here is a H/W solution that I use in 4 of my computer labs at a university. I use the Centurion Guard http://www.centuriontech.com this allows them to play around how ever they want but once the machine is rebooted, it is back to normal. And with it being H/W with a physical key, they cannot get around it as you can with software. I hope this helps.

by shanghai sam

The "Centurion" lookes good but for 100-150 computers it could be expensive. and as above i already use registry restrictions.

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