Disabling Windows functions, how do you do it?

[lprocter]

This is my scenario:
My mother uses a computer to talk to us while we are at university and she surfs the net and checks her e-mail in Outlook, that is IT! Well, my youngest brother is mIRC jackass and likes to mess up everything on her computer. I want to set it up so that NOTHING can be downloaded to the computer and you can only check e-mail (can't alter the pop or server settings after I set it) and surf the net and that is all! How do I go about brother-proofing my mom's computer so she can simply chat with us, check e-mail and look at clothes online??? Thanks.

[danb4]

Well, it's kinda hard to give you suggestions when I don't know what operating system you're using. I'll assume it's win 9x.

There really isn't any good way to keep him from screwing it up, if he has access to it, and he's determined, he can screw it up. There are applications that will supposedly lock a desktop down, but that's probably more effort than it's worth.

I would suggest you address the problem itself--talk to your brother. If you try a software solution, he may just take it as a challenge.

Bottom line is that there really isn't any good way to accomplish what you're trying to do if he's determined to screw up the system.


Assuming you can't resolve his behavior:

Buy your mother a new computer and give him her old one to screw up at will. Then have her lock up the new one when she's not around.

One other option:

Use Norton Ghost to take an image of the hard drive, and if he screws it up you can restore the drive in a few minutes.



Good luck

[rangeral]

You could try users in control panel and password protect her profile plus the 98 resource kit has some policy tools that you can use to set policies, you'll have to buy it but if you investigate it see what it has that appeals to you then you could probably find it cheap at ebay.

[[shawn@localhost /home]#]

i have a cool but costly idea, you have to buy windows 2000 to pull it off....

just get a user login goin, make sure your mom doesn't give the punk a login account and that she doesn't tell him her password

he won't be able to use the computer and you can laugh your **** off ahahahaha :D

but for cheaper budgets try this website HERE (www.webattack.com) to try and find some freeware or some shareware to setup a login password without having to get windows 2000

[RayH]

Lock the computer and get your brother Web TV!

[[shawn@localhost /home]#]

you cant lock your computer unless you have windows NT or 2000

[AzKidd69]

You could always use a boot lock program.. It gets installed in the MBR and that way it runs and you enter password to proceed... Plus put in a CMOS password.. plus swap out the power button with a server style keyswitch, plus put keylocks on the case...

Would be a total pain to boot but would work great... LOL

In all seriousness... How much does your brother know about PC's??

Try a boot lock prgram or a bios password if he's not all that good....

Better yet.. Install Linux and give your mom a user account and your brother a locked down user account and keep the root password to yourself. (best of all completely free....)

[[shawn@localhost /home]#]

about Linux, i seriously doubt this guy's mom knows how to use Linux, i bet this guy himself doesn't know how to use Linux that good

its easy to setup the accounts and the accesses but its sort of hard to communicate between Linux and Windows depending on the scenario

if you are communicating through email then oh hell yeah it's easy as can be, if you are using ICQ to communicate it gets a bit trickier: make sure she gets LICQ from www.LICQ.com and get the PRE-COMPILED VERSION OR YOU WILL SWEAR QUITE A BIT