There’s a GP setting to hide/show drive letters individually. You can get floppy drives with A and B, CD is a bit more difficult – you may need to enumerate the drives in a logon script and set the registry accordingly.

 

Thanks.

 

--Brian Desmond

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Payton on the web! www.wpcp.org

 

v - 773.534.0034 x135

f - 773.534.8101

 


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cothern Jeff D. Team EITC
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 3:33 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Disable USB

 

What about Floppy and cd rom access.  Is there a quick easy why where they wont have any access to them?

 

 


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Brian Desmond
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 4:07 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Disable USB

 

SP2 is the first OS to support disabling USB thumbdrives.

 

Thanks.

 

--Brian Desmond

[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Payton on the web! www.wpcp.org

 

v - 773.534.0034 x135

f - 773.534.8101

 


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Cothern Jeff D. Team EITC
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 3:04 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] Disable USB

 

Was there ever any input on this? 

 

Don’t you just love those hey I need you to do this today.. like an hour ago.

 

 

 


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Arezina
Sent: Saturday, July 17, 2004 5:45 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ActiveDir] Disable USB

 

Dear all,

I was forwarded the following adm script or as some refer to adm file. The adm file is great for those that wish to disable usb drivers through gpo. However, I found this not to work even after I move the computer to the specific gpo. I would appreciate some help from those who are curious as to disable the usb drives in their network.

Cheers,

Cheers,

George

 

 

Hi!

When I started working as junior Network-Administrator I got in touch with Group Policies for the first time.
We wanted to have all our clients (~130) updated regularily and because of that we chose SUS.

As the SUS Server was set up and running, my manager came to me and asked me if there was a possibility to block the access to floppy drives/cd roms/usb-sticks company-wide on a centralized basis without having to remove the hardware.
There should be a possibility to exclude some workstations and USB-Scanners, mice and printers should still work.

This is something I worked out with the help of some BugTraq-Infos and my own research. And I want to give it away here because there might be interest in it for you and your company, too...

..::How does it work

Drives are started at system startup using "Services" registry keys. Basically we just tell the service to not start the device at Windows-Boot.
This removes the drives access completely, although it still can be used to boot the machine before Windows has been started.
The Setting can be reverted by manually editing a registry key to the default startup value.

The registry code can be found at the end of this post.

..::The „Disable Floppy“ GPO & Security Groups

This GPO has the ability to disable three kinds of drives (even more if you want to get into it):
o) Floppy drives
o) CD-Roms
o) USB-Sticks

I _strongly_ advise you to try this in a non-productive environment since I am not very deep into Group Policies and therefor take no responsibility for any errors or problems that might occur. Try/use at your own risk.

Using groups allows to apply these settings to a smaller group of testers or a test environment.
I created two Security Groups:
o) SG_Drives_Disable - which bears all Computers that should be locked
o) SG_Drives_Enable - this one has a "Deny" on this Group Policy which means that members of this group will never have this policy applied.

..::Getting Started

> First we create an Administrative Template that enables us to change settings.
In Explorer on a Domain Controller:
o) Choose New>Text Document
o) Paste the appropriate code at the end of this post into this file
o) Choose File>Save as>(pick a name according to the code)
o) Add the extension .adm or rename the .txt file

> Create two Security Groups
o) Launch Active Directory Users & Comuters
o) Add a new SG by right-clicking on your AD and choose "New Group"
o) Make up a name - let's pick SG_Drives_Disable (this will be our floppy-locked group)
o) Repeat the creation and add a group called SG_Drives_Enable (this will be our floppy-users group)

> Now we set up a new Policy - let's call it "Disable_Drives"
o) Right click your AD and choose Properties
o) Pick "Group Policy" and choose "New..."
o) Add a Policy called "Disable_Drives"
o) Right click the new policy and choose "Security"
o) Remove the check at "Authenticated Users"
o) "Add" the two new SG Groups
o) Check "Apply" for SG_Drives_Disable
o) Check "Deny" for SG_Drives_Enable

Now we are almost done. We have the policy and the groups.
The test-workstations are still missing, also the Administrative Templates have to be added.
Take a sip from your favourite beverage - we're almost there...

> Let's import the Administrative Templates
o) Right click your AD and choose Properties
o) Pick "Group Policy" and choose the "Disable_Drives" policy
o) Hit the "Edit" button
o) Choose "Computer Configuration"
o) Right click "Administrative Templates" and choose "Add/Remove Templates"
o) Add our new .adm file/s

> A new sub-Folder is being added called "Restrict Drives" (unless the code was changed to a different name)
If you can't see any policies make a right click in the white area and uncheck "Show Policies Only" and "Show Configured Policies Only".
You should see the added policies now. If you have added all three (floppy.adm, cdrom.adm, usbstick.adm) you should see three policies.

> Configuration
o) Double click the policy you want to configure - let's pick "Disable the Floppy Drive"
o) Choose the "Enabled" setting > this marks this policy as "Enabled"
o) Where it says "Disable Floppy Drive" set it on "Enabled" too > this activates the registry key
o) Hit "OK"

Add one or two computers for testing as members to the "SG_Drives_Disable" group, start the computer and log on,
restart the computer again and log on again. Now the floppy drive should be gone.

Take another sip from your beverage and relax - we're done :-)

> Removal prodecure
If you want to return all computers in the "SG_Drives_Disable" group to the original state
o) Set "Disable Floppy Drive" to "Disabled" > this sets the registry key to the default value
o) Leave the policy itselfs as "Enabled" (do not pick "Not defined" or "Disabled")
After two restarts of the computer the floppy should be back.
If this doesn't help you can return it to the original state manually.

> Manual removal
This might apply to you if you accidently locked the wrong workstation or want to bring it back to original state.
o) Remove the computer from the SG_Drives_Disable group
o) Restart the computer
o) Log on as administrator
o) Use the enable_floppy.reg file to reanable the drive (this file only changes the registry startup key)
o) Restart again and verify if it worked

Please bear in mind that this was one of my first attempts to work with a group policy.
The code may contain serious bugs or cause malfunction.
Use at your own risk!
(It works flawlessly here at my company though)

Here is the code for all files (three .adm's and three .reg's to reenable the drives:

o) content of killfloppy.adm

CODE


CLASS MACHINE

CATEGORY !!categoryname

 POLICY !!policyname

  KEYNAME "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Flpydisk"

  EXPLAIN !!explaintext

    PART !!labeltext DROPDOWNLIST REQUIRED
 
      VALUENAME "Start"

      ITEMLIST
       NAME !!Disabled VALUE NUMERIC 3 DEFAULT
       NAME !!Enabled VALUE NUMERIC 4
      END ITEMLIST

    END PART

  END POLICY

END CATEGORY


[strings]
categoryname="Restrict Drives"
policyname="Disable the Floppy Drive"
explaintext="Disables the computers Floppy Drive completely"
labeltext="Disable Floppy Drive"
Enabled="Enabled"
Disabled="Disabled"



o) content of killcdrom.adm

CODE


CLASS MACHINE

CATEGORY !!categoryname

 POLICY !!policyname

  KEYNAME "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom"

  EXPLAIN !!explaintext

    PART !!labeltext DROPDOWNLIST REQUIRED
 
      VALUENAME "Start"

      ITEMLIST
       NAME !!Disabled VALUE NUMERIC 1 DEFAULT
       NAME !!Enabled VALUE NUMERIC 4
      END ITEMLIST

    END PART

  END POLICY

END CATEGORY


[strings]
categoryname="Restrict Drives"
policyname="Disable the CDROM Drive"
explaintext="Disables the computers CDROM Drive completely"
labeltext="Disable CDROM Drive"
Enabled="Enabled"
Disabled="Disabled"



o) content of killusbdrive.adm

CODE


CLASS MACHINE

CATEGORY !!categoryname

 POLICY !!policyname

  KEYNAME "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR"

  EXPLAIN !!explaintext

    PART !!labeltext DROPDOWNLIST REQUIRED
 
      VALUENAME "Start"

      ITEMLIST
       NAME !!Disabled VALUE NUMERIC 3 DEFAULT
       NAME !!Enabled VALUE NUMERIC 4
      END ITEMLIST

    END PART

  END POLICY

END CATEGORY


[strings]
categoryname="Restrict Drives"
policyname="Disable the USB Drive"
explaintext="Disables the computers USB Drive completely"
labeltext="Disable USB Drive"
Enabled="Enabled"
Disabled="Disabled"



o) content of enable_floppy.reg

CODE


REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Flpydisk]
"Start"=dword:00000003



o) content of enable_cdrom.reg

CODE


REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Cdrom]
"Start"=dword:00000001



o) content of enable_usbdrive.reg

CODE


REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\USBSTOR]
"Start"=dword:00000003

 

 

 

George Arezina

Opportunity International

Branimira Cosica 13, 21000 Novi Sad

* E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

( Phone & Fax:+381 (21) 530-111

( GSM:  +381 (63)  342-321

 


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