Solved Looking for restriction software to prevent unwanted hard drive mods.

[vpwin7]

To keep this brief my girlfriend's laptop is on the verge of dying and is prompting persistent hardware failures. I'm considering letting her use my gaming desktop to watch movies and what not being it is connected to my TV and home surround; however, her tech knowledge is not so great and I'm not fond of losing vital information. Just recently, and in the past I cleaned her computer of viruses, malware, and all those other nasty what nots. I'm looking for free software that I can use to prevent downloading of files, possibly transporting from USB, and of course preventing Firefox java applications/certificates from being used. I assume I can take care of the Firefox one through program settings, but as for the rest does anyone have any suggestions? The only thing that she should be able to do is browse the internet and watch online videos, save using existing programs such as notepad - paint - ect, and ... well I guess that's about it!

 

[Sub Styler]

Put her on a limited user account and make sure all your vitals are kept private. she shouldn't be able to install anything without admin password. For further restrictions you can use the Parental controls in the control panel and for even more controls add windows live family safety. Although she will still have access to her own folders this is the only place she should be able to do any damage.

 

[vpwin7]

Put her on a limited user account and make sure all your vitals are kept private. she shouldn't be able to install anything without admin password. For further restrictions you can use the Parental controls in the control panel and for even more controls add windows live family safety. Although she will still have access to her own folders this is the only place she should be able to do any damage.

I have little faith in default Windows protection. I've seen programs tear through security settings. I found a really nice Firefox addon called Public Fox which enabled me to block the downloading of certain file types, as well locking Firefox settings. That combined with disabling new certificates and the Java platform I should be pretty safe from accidental infection. Not too worried about her browsing my hard drives and maliciously destroying everything, just trying to block unintentional threats

 

[Corazon]

There's a very simple way, actually...just take a full image of your system with something like Macrium Reflect, and when she's done and everyone gets their laptop back, restore the image. Presto

 

[MilesAhead]

In addition to saving a system image you may want to consider one of the "all changes abandoned on next boot" type of software:

Probably the Best Free Security List in the World

In the list, click on 10. Sandbox and virtualization.

The last time I looked there was a free version of Returnil. I was looking at that myself. But I determined a real nasty malware is going to attack the system's ability to boot. But in combination with a system image it may be a simple solution. Enable it or something similar. Let the person play. When done, reboot and it's back to where you first enabled it.