We are installing some spiffy new W2k computers for public use of the internet. Each machine will have only two accounts: administrator and public user.
What we desire is:
1. Each user gets a freshly restarted computer to use
2. After public user logs in a policy form is presented and agreed to before continued use is permitted
3. Each user session is limited to x pages of printing
4. Users can save files only to a specified folder on the hard drive, on the floppy drive, or to the cd-burner
5. Each user session is one hour, notice ito save work or prepare for shutdown is provided 10 and 5 minutes before the hour is up.
6. When the hour is up the machine restarts
7. Pop-ups are routinely "killed" but users could use some keystroke to open if desired
8. Users cannot close whichever program is providing these restrictions.
Resources we have available are WinSelect, Deep Freeze, licensed PWB.
Thanks for your advice.
cmoss - remove carets cmoss^@ci.coppell.tx.us^
New machines ... advice
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New machines ... advice
cmoss
This seems quite close to our setup....
>> 1. Each user gets a freshly restarted computer to use
We logoff after every session because rebooting takes so long on our WinNT machines, but the setup would be the same. We have an administration computer which schedules batch files to run using the AT command. These files run logoff.exe on the remote computer. I've never used it, but the WinNT resource kit has shutgui.exe to perform remote shutdowns from a batch file. If W2k doesn't have a replacement this should still work I imagine.
If you wanted the PC to reboot after 1 hour instead of at a preset time, PWB does that itself I'm pretty sure. (Again I haven't played with that)
>> 2. After public user logs in a policy form is presented and agreed to before continued use is permitted
Part of PWB. (not the login part) Do you have to have you users log in? Ours don't but I read a post in the PWBv2 forum about spragers' VBscript that does this.
>> 3. Each user session is limited to x pages of printing
That's on my wishlist too. Sound tricky though without tinker'n with your printer software. (I'm no expert)
>> 4. Users can save files only to a specified folder on the hard drive, on the floppy drive, or to the cd-burner
I think PWB does this. We don't allow our customers to save full stop, so I've no experience there. Your CD-Burner probably comes with some software to allow the burner to function similar to conventional drives. I know my home PC's does, I just never use it that way.
>> 5. Each user session is one hour, notice ito save work or prepare for shutdown is provided 10 and 5 minutes before the hour is up.
We do this as well, I wrote some web pages using a javascript that displays a little LED timer and some animated gifs flashing at customers to warn them to save their documents. We can customize to display any times we want and remotely schedule it (form the admin PC) to display in a little PWB window at the bottom of the screen with all the trimmings turned off.
>> 6. When the hour is up the machine restarts
Same as No.1 really...
>> 7. Pop-ups are routinely "killed" but users could use some keystroke to open if desired
I don't know about a keystroke, but I've used a shell button to launch a new instance of PWB referring to a different ini file. You could have the new ini file to be the same except for how it treats pup-ups. Maybe change the title bar as well to differrentiate between the two? Then its a matter of user education.
>> 8. Users cannot close whichever program is providing these restrictions.
If the restrictions are triggered from a remote Admin PC, your standard network security settings should prevent them from changing them (I would hope!). The only sticking point I've had is executing the javascripts remotely (I have a post about them on the forums "PWB vs PSEXEC"). They work, but they are not trully executed from the remote PC, although none of our customers have gotten around them. They'd still get kicked off anyway, just no warnings.
>> 1. Each user gets a freshly restarted computer to use
We logoff after every session because rebooting takes so long on our WinNT machines, but the setup would be the same. We have an administration computer which schedules batch files to run using the AT command. These files run logoff.exe on the remote computer. I've never used it, but the WinNT resource kit has shutgui.exe to perform remote shutdowns from a batch file. If W2k doesn't have a replacement this should still work I imagine.
If you wanted the PC to reboot after 1 hour instead of at a preset time, PWB does that itself I'm pretty sure. (Again I haven't played with that)
>> 2. After public user logs in a policy form is presented and agreed to before continued use is permitted
Part of PWB. (not the login part) Do you have to have you users log in? Ours don't but I read a post in the PWBv2 forum about spragers' VBscript that does this.
>> 3. Each user session is limited to x pages of printing
That's on my wishlist too. Sound tricky though without tinker'n with your printer software. (I'm no expert)
>> 4. Users can save files only to a specified folder on the hard drive, on the floppy drive, or to the cd-burner
I think PWB does this. We don't allow our customers to save full stop, so I've no experience there. Your CD-Burner probably comes with some software to allow the burner to function similar to conventional drives. I know my home PC's does, I just never use it that way.
>> 5. Each user session is one hour, notice ito save work or prepare for shutdown is provided 10 and 5 minutes before the hour is up.
We do this as well, I wrote some web pages using a javascript that displays a little LED timer and some animated gifs flashing at customers to warn them to save their documents. We can customize to display any times we want and remotely schedule it (form the admin PC) to display in a little PWB window at the bottom of the screen with all the trimmings turned off.
>> 6. When the hour is up the machine restarts
Same as No.1 really...
>> 7. Pop-ups are routinely "killed" but users could use some keystroke to open if desired
I don't know about a keystroke, but I've used a shell button to launch a new instance of PWB referring to a different ini file. You could have the new ini file to be the same except for how it treats pup-ups. Maybe change the title bar as well to differrentiate between the two? Then its a matter of user education.
>> 8. Users cannot close whichever program is providing these restrictions.
If the restrictions are triggered from a remote Admin PC, your standard network security settings should prevent them from changing them (I would hope!). The only sticking point I've had is executing the javascripts remotely (I have a post about them on the forums "PWB vs PSEXEC"). They work, but they are not trully executed from the remote PC, although none of our customers have gotten around them. They'd still get kicked off anyway, just no warnings.