Sort of, and you will have to try it first, but there is a trick using Task Scheduler to create a shortcut that will always run an app as admin with no UAC prompt.
Elevated Program Shortcut without UAC Prompt - Create
But also see,,,
Run as Administrator
Are you sure his PC is win7 HP? GPedit is only available in Pro and up.
That is correct. My mistake. He had XP and that is when I was messing with the group policy and I must have thought it was windows 7 so I was mistaken. I have tried to deny him access to write on his HD so he can't delete anything, but this messes up the recycle bins. I have sucessfully denied his write access to just the desktop and cleared the taskbar and applications and everything is working fine, with one problem. He still can get windows explorer open ?somehow? I took away paint because I saw he can get to browse in the file menu but there are no other applications that browse so I can't figure out how he get's it open.
Please if anyone has a solution to prevent windows explorer from launching on windows home premium please let me know. Group policies are not available. I also found that windows explorer will launch on broken shortcuts also. Thank you all very much. I know with all the highly skilled people on this forum I trust someone has a solution.
Unless there is some 3rd party software to suit your purposes, your best bet may indeed be via limiting user accounts and priviledges. As long as you have a system image backup, you have a safety net and can easily return to your original state (just make sure that you create the bootable CD/DVD for whatever imaging software you use in case you lock yourself out of the system or priviledges).
You could start here:
Permissions - Allow or Deny Users and Groups
Pay serious attention to the warnings:
Warning
I would recommend that you create a restore point before making changes to a file, folder, drive, or registry key permissions. This way if you make a mistake and lock yourself out (access denied) of the item, you will be able to do a system restore at boot and select the restore point to undo the mistake.
- Be sure to not deny permissions or remove your user account for the file, folder, drive, or registry key. Doing so could prevent you from having access to the item.
- Be sure to not deny permissions to the Everyone group for the file, folder, drive, or registry key. This will also include your user account.
- Be sure to not deny permissions to TrustedInstaller, LOCAL SERVICE, RESTRICTED, SERVICE, or SYSTEM if listed. Doing so will prevent Windows 7 from having access, and will cause Windows 7 to not run properly afterwards.
And you can create a restore point, but be warned that we see a lot of posters who try a system restore after changing permissions to no success, so a system image is crucial.
At any rate, as you follow the tut, you can see that you can deny users access to files and programs.
My suggestion would be (again, after creating your system image):
1. Right click on C:\windows\explorer.exe
2. Choose the Security tab
3. Under the Group or user names section, click the Edit button
4. Add your user account (i.e., Jeremy/Admin, whatever your account is named...it may well already be there, but make sure that your account is present and has full permissions [don't worry about the Special Permissions item] before you make any changes!)
From here, follow the tut to deny access to your son's user account. The tut and the other links I previously posted will give you more info.
I've never tried to deny a user access to Explorer.exe, so I'm not sure how it will work out, but you have nothing to lose if you have the system image.
If you do try this, please let us know how it works out. It's not as much work as it may seem. It's just about getting up to speed on different techniques. Once you get the hang of it, you can start buttoning down your son's account.
James
Well I will be the bad guy. If a person will not use the the computer as instructed, then just take the computer privileges away, period. If a person won't drive the can as they should just take the keys away, done. Their will always be some sort of get around (back door way) of anything someone does to the computer to stop someone from doing something. Hit me, beat me up or what ever. This is the only way I know how to stop it when a person is computer savvy and has access to the computer.
Well his account needs to be able to read & execute explorer.exe or you just get a pretty blue screen. But I think that's really really close. If I can now just figure out how to say copy explorer.exe to explore_2.exe and shell the explorer_2.exe at startup that would probably do exactly what I am looking for. Searched for 'explorer.exe' in regedit and not finding what I thought I would. Thank you for your help I know the solution is out there. Sooner or later this will have to be solved by somebody.. I know there are alot of people that think the solution is not to let kids play with computers but there is tons of software for this very small age group and kids won't go away.
The best solution is a third party application found here: Make Any PC Kid-Friendly It's a 14 day trial but it works as advertised.
Learn about LUA + SRP ... software restriction polices. All my friends and families machines are setup this way. Total lockdown. Now in your case, you also want to restrict explorer from accessing the internet. The best way to do that would be to add a policy of using only a proxy which does not exist.
http://www.mechbgon.com/srp/
You cannot child proof anything. Any teen can use a Linux boot disk or Linux installed on USB to get what they want online, and if you try to put up a BIOS password they can just clear the CMOS or take out the battery for a few minutes. They can also browse freely from their phones by setting up a temporary Wi-Fi ad-hoc network.
i would say deepfreeze would be best, anything he does will be undone after a restart
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