We're XP now on all of our Public Access PCs, but a lot of what we use now we also used on Win98.
In earlier times, we used Fortres 101 (http://www.fortres.com) to secure the PCs and it did a pretty good job. They were decent to deal with as well. We've also used Windows policies, Zen policies (we're on a Novell network) and Centurion Guard / Drive Shield (from Centurion Technologies - http://www.centuriontech.com/). The Centurion Guard is a hardware/software combo; Drive shield is software only - like Deep Freeze they both keep an image that is restored automatically on restart (it won't wipe if you simply log out.) Drive Shield is considerably cheaper than the Guards (about 1/3 the price) and both will work with a controller program. If students save a file to the hard drive on a PC with them on it, it's guaranteed to be gone on the next restart. Ditto if they're actually able to install something with just "user" permissions; in Win98 since everyone has the equivalent of "admin" rights the install would proceed fine, but when it goes to reboot to complete the install, it would be wiped out. If there's no reboot necessary, it stays until the next restart. You can simply use a reg hack too for restricting what programs can be run. (See Registry Guide for Windows - http://www.winguides.com/registry/ for details. They have a downloadable version.) Our Library Catalog Only workstations currently use IE and a reg hack to keep them from being able to change Internet options. We've looked into doing it with Firefox and it's doable there too, by editing the xul file in browser.jar . The College has some "email stations" on XP that currently have only a browser installed; newer versions are supposed to include Office as well. No printing; students have no network save space - just to floppy/USB key, maybe CD. These are simply secured via Centurion Guards -- no other restrictions. Hope this ramblings are of some help. If you need more specifics on any of it, feel free to contact me directly. Giles W. Riesner Jr., Library Tech Support Community College of Balto. Co. - Catonsville 800 S. Rolling Rd., Baltimore MD 21228 USA Tel/V-Mail 1-410-455-4245 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------0riginal Message----------------- Date: Thu, 12 Jan 2006 16:13:49 -0500 From: Pete Holsberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Protecting a Public Access Win98 Computer I researched this in the past but now I cannot find the results of that research and google doesn't turn up the name of the program I had found before, soooo..... We wish to have 2 Win98 PCs in a public access area for the use of our residents. We would like them to be able to surf the net (including using the browser for "webmail"), and use a few installed programs: Word, Excel, etc. They should be able to save their Word/Excel files _only_ to a floppy disk. They should not be able to download anything (except webpages into the browser cache) or be able to install any programs, including malware. They should not be able to change any system settings or access any folders the system admin deems "forbidden". Do any of you have any experience with a program that does this? (Thanks to google, I have a list of programs that purport to do this but there's nothing like talking to the guy who has one. :-) Thanks. -- -- ---------------------------------------- The WIN-HOME mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
