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:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/122666-permissions-allow-deny-users-groups.html
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