Idontwantspam

Good point... you could have them download a PDF with the necessary for fields and print it out.

Make sure they all are set to require Ctrl+Alt+Del to log on, and hide the last username. You might want to put links to common applications on the default desktop, maybe set the homepage to your company's website, set up the support info for the system control panel, stuff like that. Maybe brand IE, put in a custom logon image in the logon dialog, etc. Really just think about what YOU want them to be like - and what your company wants them to be like. Oh, and all updates up until now installed of course.

NO NO NO!!! Smoking is baaaaaaaaaaadd for you. My grandpa died of lung cancer from smoking I voted no rather than no I hate smokers. Why? Well, it does p*** me off when people smoke in public and I am forced to inhale their nasty fumes, but I do not hate them - I hate the greedy tobacco companies. They're just in it to make money, but so many people die from smoking.

I think google is the absolute best search engine; if it disappeared, I'd be bummed but I'd just use yahoo or msn or something. But the bigger effect would be their other services - I love google earth, and of course if my Gmail went missing out of the blue, I'd be in a bad way.

As for the software side of things, such as looking at system info and the like: we have a software list! Microsoft SysInternals (Formerly by Winternals. Great software.) System Info for Windows This can be useful, but I think it costs for commercial use. Wikipedia rocks! And for your logs... log on to an administrative account. Go to the run box and type eventvwr.exe. There you've got a ton of information. The application log has information entered by apps installed on your system. Security shows when who was logged on as well as other security-related logs. System shows system information - updates, services being started, etc. Very handy.

(pardon my bad explanation ahead of time) A service is basically a program that runs all of the time, but in the background. You don't see it, but you might interact with it. To see what services are running, click Start > run and type services.msc. If you see some sort of "internet restriction thing-a-ma-bob" then try opening it and seeing if you can stop the service. Also, if it's just some random keyboard shortcut to open it, try looking on their website's help area, it might list the default. Alternatively, try going to C:/Program Files/<program name> and see if there is some file ending in .exe that might be the config utility and try opening it. If you don't know the name, it might jog your memory to check out the program files folder as instructed above. There may be a folder for it.

Can anyone recommend some resources to make windows xp look more like OSX? I personally wouldn't use ii, but I've had some people asking me to make their XP install "look more like a mac". I've found a mac-like msstyle on crystalxp.net, and StarDock makes objectdock, but that's all I've found so far. Specifically, can anyone recommend some icons and/or a logonui.exe file that look like osx? Thanks in advance... I'll post here again if I find any more resources since there might be others interested in doing this. Side note: I strongly dislike [cr]apples. I dislike OSX in particular. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

niña (girl in spanish, or "La niña", something weather related)

lol! I've done that before, too. Sigh. You should be able to uninstall it through the control panel. Or, if it runs as a service, disable the service using services.msc until you can figure out the password.

I assume this is a local workgroup, not a domain, correct? By default, workgroups use "simple" file sharing, AKA f'd up file sharing. Basically, when some other computer connects to your computer, it logs in as the guest account by default. So, if the guest account is disabled, then they can't connect to your computer. Note that there is a difference between turned off and disabled. Turned off just means they can't log on interactively, but in reality, the account is not disabled. It can - and will - still connect over the network. Disabled means it can't log on at ALL, even over the network. You can check whether it's disabled or not by opening the run box and typing lusrmgr.msc, then hitting ok. Click on the users folder, then find guest. If it's got a red x through it, it's disabled. If not, it's enabled. I would recommend though that you don't use simple file sharing, because it's a pain. If you turn it off, then users connect to other computers as themselves, not as a guest, and additionally, you can disable the guest account safely and you can use the security tab on properties for files and folders to set permissions. I would highly recommend this, even though MS doesn't for some odd reason. Open an explorer window, click Tools > Folder options. Scroll down and uncheck "use simple file sharing (recommended)". Click OK. A reboot should get it all working, although a log-off log-on might suffice. One question though. Why the heck are you running windows xp on a server when you could be running windows server... and then have a domain?

The .dbx files will still be accessible and they are not encrypted. two solutions (assuming you have a seperate user account, which you should): 1: Encrypt them. Duh. 2: Use file permissions to deny access to them 3: If they're in that user's profile, then they won't be accessible anyway.

Powerpoint viewer runs directly from the CD. No installation needed.

Ahem: Validate

Can BartPE help in this case?

Opera can block sites. You can filter using your choice of blacklist or whitelist for different websites, filetypes and combinations of these and others. That's good to know!

9x supports domains, you can use poledit to write polices, its just xp and vista home that doesnt support it even though wfw 3.11 could connect to a domain but use what you want not up to me XP Home and Vista Home don't support domains because they're sold to customers who don't need domains. Want domain support, get professional. It's not a limitation in the capabilities of the OS, it's a limitation imposed by the company intentionally. Poledit policies are nothing compared to what you get with Windows 2000 and up in the NT line, and the fact still remains that the 9x line was not truly multi-user. The NT line is much more stable and secure, regardless of whatever "features" you don't like.

I love USB drives. I call 'em flash drives though. One reason is, if the computer has no internet or LAN access, a USB drive will almost always work. Also, since our school computers have no useful software other than MS office, it's nice to be able to run portable apps from a USB drive. And, they can hold a LOT more than email can. Gmail gives what, 2 Gb? My flash drive is 512Mb, but think how long it would take to download 512MB from your mail! They're relatively cheap; you should get one.

Very well? I've never had anything but good experiences with opera.

I agree with you. They're all nice though.

To do this on a larger scale, which is way overkill for what you're doing, but schools and businesses use a squid server. I think it can do stuff like that.

If you can find that, I'd be grateful, as I'm sure others would be. Do note however that with R-Kiosk, clicking the minimize, maximize and close buttons does nothing. Alt+F4 does work, however. Maybe someone who's better at programming/scripting than I am can write something that will monitor firefox and if it's closed, prompt the user whether they'd like to log off or restart firefox, and if they don't answer after, say, 20 seconds, automatically restart and put something in the event log. That would be sweet. It could be added in that user's startup registry key. Any volunteers?

That usually works, but what if explorer is frozen and you can't right-click on the taskbar?

lol!

you mean like this? Yeah, so do I. That's why in XP I always disable the frickin' welcome screen. Using classic logon is so much safer, since you can lock the computer and all that. And hide the last username so script kiddies can't break in quite so easily. And, fast user switching IS possible in XP with the welcome screen off. See this page. If before then, you mean windows 9x, it gave you this: And if before that you mean DOS or windows 1-3 then I believe it triggered a reboot. Or, if you mean windows NT 4, it was very similar to what you get in 2000 and xp. Only in english. I couldn't find any pics of it in english... Found one in english:

a) The method you linked to is not optimal. b) The guy you talked to was wrong. All the changes you seek to make are registry settings. This excel worksheet contains much more info. Here's what you do: Log on as the administrator. Open regedit. (On windows 2000 this might require regedt32, I'm not sure...) Go to HKEY_USERS. Click File > Load hive. Open C:/Documents and Settings/thatuser/ntuser.dat Give it a name. Go to thatname/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/policies. Using the spreadsheet linked to above, figure out what you need to add. Most will go in the system or explorer key. Create these keys if necessary. For most of the options, create a DWORD value, and name it whatever the setting is. So, for example, if it says to put the setting in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer!NoControlPanel then go to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer and create a DWORD value named NoControlPanel. Set these values to 1 for policy enabled, or 0 for policy not enabled. A few of these go in a different key, usually HKU\<thatuser>\policies\microsoft\windows\. When you're done you MUST unload the hive, or you WILL get problems. Go to file > unload hive and click OK. Log on as the user, and your settings should take effect.