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General discussion

Non Admin account settings

Jul 22, 2007 2:33AM PDT

I have a windows XP-Sp2 machine, with 1GB of ram, 75 GM of HDD and P4-2.4 Ghz cpu. I want to restrict the access to the my machine, when logged in as non-admin account( user account). For that I use the group policy to apply different settings such as: disabling run, disabling access to control panel , disabling access to the advanced tab to the IE. But the glitch is that when I use the group policy to apply such settings the setting applies for all users including the admin account BUT I want to apply these settings only to the non-admin account. How is this possible, PLEASE HELP. Is there fixes or patches out there which can help or is there any other way around to thrash the problem?

Discussion is locked

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Just so you know.
Jul 22, 2007 2:50AM PDT

Such attempts are usually futile. I've demo'd how to get around such in mere minutes with a Linux boot USB or CD device and information from http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm

Having watched people spend months locking down a machine only to see me walk right past it in minutes they learn a quick lesson about security.

I don't suggest giving much time to this area but go ahead and hand out a limited account.

Bob

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RE: Well tell me....
Jul 22, 2007 3:09AM PDT

Well Proffitt, I dont know whethe the procedure to solve my prob exists or not. But buddy imagine a situation in which Windowx XP PRO is running in a corporate environment and besides setting up firewall and network security settings the IT-honchos of the company also want to restrict access for all the Employees who are not administrators to the user level and they have specific requirement for restricting access ( like disabling run button etc.. which obviously is possible through group
policy).
Now The question I want to ask you is that, Does Microsoft geeks who have developed
this Windows XP OS have forgot to give such a flexibility in making windows XP secure, I dont think they didnt had imagined a situation I am roughly describing and there must be some way out of this problem.

And now, what since you are alternatively solved the problem, kindly send me the details, so that I can also test it out.

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Group policy and corp environment means....
Jul 22, 2007 3:23AM PDT

We have some Active Directory server in the brew which I don't have access to. In this case the security is much better.

I take it you don't have a server so my answer to this question:

"Now The question I want to ask you is that, Does Microsoft geeks who have developed
this Windows XP OS have forgot to give such a flexibility in making windows XP secure, I dont think they didnt had imagined a situation I am roughly describing and there must be some way out of this problem."

The answer is it's not secure without the noted server. I've proven this too many times and supplied enough information for you to prove it to yourself.

You are now equipped to test it out.

Bob

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Well...
Jul 22, 2007 3:49AM PDT

Like Bob said, you're going to need something like Active Directory to do what you want.

You need to understand that Windows is designed with security being a very distant second to usability. Microsoft's corporate culture is still stuck in the pre-Internet era, when every computer system was pretty much an island unto itself. This is how they still design their operating systems. The whole "Internet revolution" Bill Gates is credited with creating inside Microsoft amounts to little more than tacking on a few Internet related features, such as bundling a web browser with the OS.

As a company, Microsoft still doesn't "get" security. Some departments do, to their credit, and they come up with expensive little add-on packages like Active Directory to help address some of these problems.

IMO there are better ways of going about things. I know the IT mantra is to give users only the access they need to do their jobs, but sometimes that isn't possible, so other options are needed. For example, just make it clear that the IT staff can do random inspections of a system at any time if they have cause, and that this can be done remotely without the user's knowledge. And that if a user seems to have a disproportionately high number of problems, which are clearly user caused, that some sort of penalty may be imposed. It's up to your company to decide on an appropriate penalty... From being required to take some kind of basic computer course at their own expense, or not being eligible for things like a Casual Friday or telecommuting for some period of time... Something to try and curb repeat offender's behavior. I'd also go around to every desktop system and remove all obvious links to IE, and replace them with either Mozilla Firefox or Opera links, making either one the company default browser. So if someone goes out of their way to use IE, and then the IT staff gets called out frequently for malware related issues, that would qualify as user initiated errors that would make them eligible for some sort of punishment. You should also remember to reward the good behavior... You could just print off simple paper certificate awards for people who haven't called the IT people for help in some number of days, and maybe have a small ceremony once a month honoring some randomly chosen member of the problem-free pool. Give them some small trinket reward, like a gift certificate for a nice restaurant or something. It doesn't have to be much, just some simple recognition of the desired behavior is all that's required.

With a little luck, people will tend to police themselves, rather than you having to do it all. The rewards issued will likely cost the company far less than the costs associated with fixing the problem, and it's a nice little moral booster. It makes people feel like their efforts aren't going unnoticed.