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Blocking Internet access for LIMITED users on Windows XP


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Is there any way to block Internet access for LIMITED users on a Windows XP machine WITHOUT using any third party software ? By googling, I've found certain guides which instructs some mechanism either using any third party tool or talks about policies which will only prevent an user from surfing if Internet Explorer is used but not other browsers. Please note that either of the solutions will not work for me.

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The usual way is to set the proxy setting to 127.0.0.1 and lock this setting. As different browsers might not use the same settings, you might also add firewall rules to block internet acces either on the computer client or on the proxy (if you're using one).

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The usual way is to set the proxy setting to 127.0.0.1 and lock this setting...........

Can it be done only for limited user accounts & left as it it for Administrators?

Yes, but you'll have to lock proxy settings for all users using gpo.

And for the firewall question, it is on a per computer setting so if you set it correctly and an admin connect on a blocked computer then the admin won't be able to connect to internet.

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Yes, but you'll have to lock proxy settings for all users using gpo.

Probably it can be achieved this way.

It's so surprising Windows doesn't provide any standard way to apply certain policies like this to limited accounts. Actually, I've started this thread to solve my friend's problem.

To my knowledge, Internet access can be prevented by one of the following methods:

1) If your organisation is using a proxy server(e.g. SQUID) for its internal network, then you can make that proxy ask for authentication, failing which one won't be able to access Internet.

2) You can install a web filter software which installs a filter driver on ur machine. That driver starts at Windows startup & rejects all network access requests dynamically. One such free, yet good tool is "K9 Web Protection". But I'm not sure whether it's configurable on a per-account basis.

3) You can force users to use specific browsers & then set those browsers' proxy settings to an invalid one. IE's proxy settings page can be made disappear from the view with some tweaks.

Now, I'm not sure whether my friend's office uses a proxy or not. So, option (1) is ruled out for the time being. They don't wan't to use any third party tool apart from what is provided with Windows. It makes me reject option (2) also. The problem with (3) is, it only prevents IE users from accessing Internet. But, they have other browsers installed. Here, I'm stuck now.

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