Track it down and kill it.

[imported_joetech]

I am a H.S. teacher( Tech Ed) and I have a problem with students playing games instead of working. Someone loaded "Mario" on the network somewhere. they say its in one of the Jur Hi teacher's folder, one of those that doesn't know how to turn a computer on, and bring it up from there. I know it is not loaded on any of my computers. We use XP Pro, with a few clients using W98. I have Admin privledges.
Our IT guy is a one man show and is too busy to track this down. Just how can I do this. Will a simple search do the trick?

 

[dphantom]

As admin, you should be able to do a search of the network folders and find the executable assuming the students are ruinning Mario from the network. If they;re running it from PCs and just teh install files are on the network, then yuo'll have to find the install files and delete them, then uninstall Mario from each PC that has it.

We use a product called "Clean Slate". as a library, we often have similar problems with library customers trying to install "stuff" on our PCs. We've found it an easy way to get rid of most nwanted programs with minimal IT intervention.

http://www.fortres.com/products/cleanslate.htm

 

[acemcmac]

good luck.

You teachers deserve a lot of credit for putting up with our shens.... I would know having driven a few teachers to the brink myself in the days of my mispent youth (a few years ago )

 

[InlineFive]

You should be able to search the network for files and then delete it. At the very least I would upgrade all machines to WinXP Pro so you can apply permissions to network file shares and restrict the programs that can run.

With a bunch of Win98 computers, you are very limited in what you can do with the native environment.

Keep in mind that I'm not an admin of a domain Windows setup so don't take me too seriously.

 

[imported_joetech]

I have clean slate available to me but I found it to be such a pain to use and took it out. Its fine if you never change anytihing in you computers because it resets everything to an original, stored config. However, these games are beng kept somewhere on the network server and not in my computers so it wouldn't stop them anyway. Also clean slate deletes everything in My Documents. I have one simulation program that I use that is very good and useful but only stores unfinished work in the individual computer only with no options to save to network. I tell all of my students to save to my student folder on the network but some don't care/listen and find there work deleted the next day with clean slate.

 

[dphantom]

Yep, that's why we use it for our public computers. We don't want any changes to take place. Different situation than you have. We can configure Clean Slate to allow saves to certain locations like a floppy or netowrk drive. Even a local folder on a PC, but that can be a pain too.