Windows 7 - Lock down a user

Hi,

I have Windows 7 Pro to install on a machine at home - no domains - for my daughter. She's a pest . She persistently gets sucked in to downloading & installing torrent clients and all manner of rubbish full of spyware & adware .

How can I set her up as a user with absoluteley no privileges what so ever to install ANYTHING ?

I will create my own admin account to set-up all the software she needs, but that will be it . Anything else will hopefully just get blocked.

Any help will be greatly appreciated - I'll be able to sleep at night again . Kids just don't know the consequences of torrent-clients etc...

Thanks for your help.

Hello Stringbean1968, and welcome to Windows Seven Forums!

Windows 7 does have some nice features for protecting family members from Internet dangers. You have the right idea. Your user account for daily use should not be an "Administrator" account, but you should have a password secured "Administrator" account for managing your computer security. Also kids are smart, and will quickly find out that the "Default Administrator" account can be enabled and used to bypass your other secure measures. So you will need to enable that account and give a password to keep that from happening, then disable it to keep it hidden until needed.

There is a wealth of tutorials here for you to take advantage of: Built-in Administrator Account - Enable or Disable

Here is a link to a thread where some computer security measures were discussed. Hopefully, some of it will help you secure your computer?

Serious Security Breach Windows 7 Account! Need help!

Please let us know how else we might be of help?

Cheers!
Robert

You can setup Guest Mode for her: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/ff_pcsafeguard.asp That is NOT the same as Guest Account.

Hmmm, or you could take the "back to square one" approach. Set everything up on the computer. Make an image backup to an external USB drive using something like Macrium Reflect. Lock the external USB in a box someplace. Once a week, take out the USB and restore the image. All her customizations, installs, crapware, will disappear and it will be back the way you had it.

A couple times spending hours changing things around only to have you shake the etch-a-sketch should discourage installing stuff.

edit: you might want to give her a drive to copy off stuff like her email so she doesn't lose her correspondence. A couple of USB keys maybe.

you can set up a regular account, not an administrator, and give permission only to those programs you checked off. did it and works great, just the setting up and going through all the programs can take a few minutes, but worth it.
if there is a program, or an extension, a window will pop up requesting permission, which can only be allowed, unlocked, through password, and two options, unlocked for the user forever, or a one time thing.

as far as internet browsing, try "Blue Coat K9 Web Protection", it's free, and has many options, including not allowing sites for cracks torrents etc.. pick the options that suit your needs.

hope this helped.