Windows 7: Public access

I am setting up computers for a local library. They are to be for public access. Policy, and good business, dictates that we limit what is available through these machines.

Unfortunately some will trash the machines and others will attempt to do something nefarious. While needing to place restrictions on the usage we also need to provide the good guys with a useful visit to our library.

The last machines were Windows 2000 and we were able to solve the problem with rebooting a clean image each time and cleaning the disk. Setting this up was a real challenge and required frequent maintenance. While it solved the trashing problem it did not limit what people did while on line and that caused several unfortunate incidents.

Windows 7 poses some real challenges.

Has anyone here 'bouts configured Windows 7 as a public system or know of any tips, tricks, scripts or documentation on what tools are available to do this?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Pro bono computer guy.

You should be able to set up the Guest account for them to use, which will have limited access. Just turn UAC on high, and limit their access through permissions.

You could also use what my school uses, Deep Freeze. It keeps an image of the computer, and every time you restart, it reverts to that image.

~Lordbob

You can use the group policy editor to limit access to everything.

10 ways to tweak Windows 7 using the Local Group Policy Editor | 10 Things | TechRepublic.com

A combination of Deep Freeze and the Group Policy Editor seems like a good solution.

One thing I did notice, the Backup and Restore seems to provide the ability to create a System Image. This would suggest it can restore an image and start anew like the Deep Freeze product.

Does anyone have any knowledge how this could work?

Mike

How to setup Windows Vista and 7 as a kiosk

I have used Deep Freeze, and a few others.

Deep Freeze and Centurion Guard are the best.

Centurion Technologies
Faronics - Home of Deep Freeze and other Intelligent Solutions for ABSOLUTE Control

One challenge we had to overcome without buying their management software and/or server. Was to get the machines to automatically update antivirus and windows updates. Other than that they work perfectly. Set the machine up and they can even log on as Administrator, once the machine reboots it is right back to the way it was setup.