A PC ... cannot be destroyed

Schools, Net shops, public Internet access points . often have public computers that anyone can use. But these are attractive targets for hackers. Not only that, but even conscious users sometimes delete some important files wrongly or install some dangerous software. How to protect these computers?

Microsoft's free Shared Computer Toolkit is likely to be an appropriate solution in these cases. This software suite allows you to configure a PC to be used only to find information on the Internet, run some designated software, not allow system changes, and not allow programs to run. binary or dangerous software . How do we look at this software suite?

You can download this software at the following address www.microsoft.com/sharedaccess. This software requires the system to be running Windows XP Service Pack 2 or Windows XP Tablet PC Editison 2005.

To install the software you need to log into the system administrator account - this will also be the Shared Computer Toolkit administrator account. You proceed to install software normally like other software.

Are you done installing? Let's explore this suite:

The first step is usually to adjust the hard drive partition to create space for Windows Disk Protection . WDP requires a separate space on the hard drive and the space must be on the primary partion of the drive - also known as the boot partition. The minimum capacity for WDP must be 10% of the capacity of the boot partition and must not be less than 1GB. Windows does not provide a non-destructive hard drive management application so you are advised to use third-party applications such as PartionMagic. When enabled, WDP has the effect of canceling any changes to the boot partition every time the PC is rebooted. So you should not enable WDP until you complete all configuration steps.

The second step is that we need to 'pull' some security settings together and activate them. An important option is to remove this administrator account from the Welcome screen every time the operating system starts. But when you hide that account, how do you log in? By going to the Welcome screen, press Ctrl-Alt-Del twice and enter your username and password into the dialog box. One more security feature is that this software prevents users from turning off or restarting the PC, disallowing unauthorized user accounts . Test Your Password allows you to check for sure You do not use an empty password or a weak password for your account.

The next step is to create an account for the public user - follow the steps to create a normal account in Windows. The suggestion is that you should create that account with ' Limited ' authority, but sometimes you must also create this account with Administrator permissions because some software cannot run with Limited accounts. Next you need to log in to the account you just created to configure or install the software . then exit that account and go back to the software administrator account.

The suite's User Restriction gives you a lot of security options that limit users from simple restrictions to complete restrictions. The selection box Lock This Profile informs the system not to store histrory Internet and other changes of users. You can also only allow access to certain websites or limit which drives will be displayed in the My Computer window to prevent users from installing software from USB drives or floppy disks. . Or you can set the PC to restart each log off - very important if you enable Windows Disk Protection .

If you check the box for Recommended Restrictions then you will actually lock the system. The Start menu will use the traditional menu style and will be missing icons such as Control Panel or My Network Places , right-clicking on the Start menu bar will no longer work. Other XP blocking rules include removing the Recycle Bin , preventing access to tools such as Command Prompt , Registry Editor , and Microsoft Management Console or disallowing access to Task Manager . Internet Explorer blocking does not allow the use of the right mouse button in the browser, no access to Internet Option or changing the buttons on the tool. Preventing in Office includes not activating Macro and VBA as well as unreasonable changes. Software Restriction Policy will block any software that is not found in Windows or in Program Files or the tools used to bypass the security features of the software.

Not only that, you can also prevent public accounts from being allowed to access the Internet, not allowing Windows Messenger or Internet Explorer to work and even disable Microsoft Office . You can also remove links from one account to another on such a PC so the items on the Start menu are only installed and used exclusively for this public account.

The next step is that you need to test your newly created account to make sure all security features are working properly.

Now log in with the software administrator account, activate Windows Disk Protection . When WDP is activated, the application controls all requirements of the software on whether or not to write data to the Windows drive. Data logging requests will be monitored and recorded but there is no change on the drive. For data reading requests, WDP will read the actual data on the hard drive but will not approve any changes.

Another technique is that you can add a layer between the system and the hard drive using other software such as Altiris Protect or Shadows User . WDP does not have the same flexibility as these software, but in return they are able to update themselves via Windows Update.

Once WDP is enabled, even changes made by the software administrator account are not applied when you restart the system. So whenever you need to change, you should disable this feature first.

Now your system is ready to operate in public.

If you decide to remove this software, you need to be careful. Some deadlines still exist simply because they are Windows features - which may be inconvenient for you. Before removing the software package, be sure to disable WDP first.

If you think you can uninstall the software by restoring it with your back-up image, you should also be careful. WDP uses non-standard configurations for back-up, primary partitions and data storage partitions. If your drive image recovery tool does not support you, you need to completely remove the partition to install and restore to another empty partition. Therefore you need to have a Master Boot Record recovery tool.

You can learn more about this toolkit here.