Help on setting up xp pro

[tiap]

We finally got ready to change over to xp because of the permissions setups. We have been using win98se but with 4 or more different people using the computer it got screwed up very often. When a win 98 lookalike screen came up and said you must download this to speed up your system they would do it. At one point there were 9 different audio players loaded. So I'd like to set up this xp pro where the admin is the only one that can install programs access control panel etc. In short , users can access the internet and email and installed programs only. I'm using ntfs and gave users the limited access checkmark. I'm lost as to how to do this. Can I get some help please.

 

[NogginBoink]

Install Windows XP. Use the NTFS filesystem.

Create three additional user accounts. Do not put those users into the Administrators group.

Done.

 

[tiap]

Thanks for the quick response.
I'm fairly new to xp. Do your instructions prevent them from installing a download program and changing system settings through control panel?

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: tiap
Thanks for the quick response.
I'm fairly new to xp. Do your instructions prevent them from installing a download program and changing system settings through control panel?

By default, users cannot write to c:\program files or the system-wide registry settings.

In effect, they can't install programs, except for simple apps that can live in their profile directory and don't write to system-wide areas of the registry.

 

[tiap]

Thanks a lot. Your answers and xp are a dream come true.

 

[PowerEngineer]

I have also recently made the transition from Win ME to XP Pro. I defined user accounts for all other users and gave them the default "limited" account which prevents them from doing things like installing programs, etc. If you want to limit access to certain folders (like your check books, tax returns, etc.), you can restrict access through file/folder properties (once you disable simple file sharing); another dream come true. The downside on "limited" accounts is that the restrictions sometimes block older applications from doing certain things that they depend on. You can try to get around these problems by running them in windows 95/98 compatibility mode, by giving the user account "power user" status, or by starting the application using the RUNAS command with saved credentials for an account with more priviledges.