Is there a simple way to limit access to things like the control panel on Windows XP Professional to certain users? I have administrative priveleges and want to limit what others can do on the computer. I'm getting tired of fixing stupid mistakes made by people who don't have a clue about what they are doing.

 

Start | Control Panel | User Accounts | Create new account | Limited | ....

Set a password on yours and make sure you always log of when leaving.

 

turn guest account on and password protect your own.

 

when using limited accounts, a couple things needs to be added.

1. power control settings. in case this is a laptop, they can finagle (WHAT???) the settings themselves. this is REG hack though...

2. give yourself a second admin account. that way if your users keep trying to hack the admin account and lock it out, you have a second back door.

speaking of which... turn off the neat little icon login screen. that way, they cant just just click on the icon of your admin level accounts and start hacking at it.

when you get to the USER control panel, uncheck that box that says "CHANGE THE WAY USERS LOGIN"...

then uncheck the box that says USE THE WELCOME SCREEN.


now, if you even want to further lock this down:

1. rename the default ADMINISTRATOR account name.

2. force the user to do a CTRL-ALT-DEL at the beginning. (this is to foil programs like key stroke logger that imitate a login screen).


you have to launch the windows 2000 user control panel screen.

at the RUN command, type in "control userpasswords2"...

you can rename all accounts from there. including the ADMINISTRATOR one...