Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

Windows XP guest account setup

  • 25-02-2010 11:34am
    #1
    20goto10
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭


    Hello,

    I've been asked to fix a PC and it turns out its completely riddled with viruses. I've never seen anything like it before, CPU is at 100% even in safe mode. I had to removed the hdd and hook it up to another machine and run a virus check. 428 infected files and about 10 viruses working away :eek:

    The PC came with antivirus installed which someone uninstalled. Turns out the PC is used by "visitors" but with only one account setup with admin rights. She mentioned that mesages kept popping up, so seems someones solution was to uninstall the antivirus for her!!

    So anyway, I was going to setup a guest account but I'm not sure what are the most effective settings while still giving people decent functionality. They will need to be able to use the internet. Pay bills, check email etc May also need to allow them to save and edit Office files, but ideally I'd like to specify that they can only edit .doc and .xls files and nothing else. Is this possible? Can anyone recommend the best settings for a guest account?

    Thanks.


Comments

  • #2
    LoLth
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,339 ✭✭✭✭LoLth


    why have a guest account? (I assume you mean the built in XP guest profile? this was disabled due to security weaknesses by one of the service packs and shouldnt be re-activated, the old threats are still out there).

    why not set up a standard user (without admin access) that logs on by default? you can still access the admin profile by ctrl-alt-del at the user select screen should you need to.

    Is the PC standalone or on a network?


  • #3
    20goto10
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,210 ✭✭✭20goto10


    Yes sorry by guest account I mean an account for visitors to use rather than the built in guest account. Does a standard user give effective protection? I'm thinking things like running malicious software, emails with exe's or browser pop ups like "you have a virus click here to fix it!". I'd like to allow them to run all installed apps, use internet, but only be able to write .docs and .xls files to the disk. So if they do something stupid the virus software cannot write to the hdd (unless its a .doc or .xls I suppose) Not sure if its possible.

    It's a standalone PC.


  • #4
    LoLth
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,339 ✭✭✭✭LoLth


    cant think of a way off the top of my head other than just not having anything installed for the user beyond office and internet explorer.

    IE: you could set the security settings to the highest possible and disable any unecessary scripting options.

    something else which could be useful: http://www.sandboxie.com/

    set any shortcuts to IE or Firefox to run through sandbox so that they dont write any changes to the hard drive outside of the protected area which gets deleted at the end of the session. havent used it a huge amount but it seems effective. It does have a performance overhead but its not that much.

    I'll post up a bit more on user rights/access settings when I have more time unless I'm beaten to it (yes cap'n midnight, i'm looking at you :p )


Advertisement