Lockdown Policies for Windows XP and 98se Questions

[JC00]

I need to lockdown my company's POS machines so only the POS software can be used and nothing else. However, I do not want to lock myself out as well since I still need to reboot, shutdown, and perform maintainance on the machines on a daily basis.Since we also have machines running on Windows 98se due to budgeting, I also would appreciate it if you indicate the gpedit.msc's Windows 98se (poledit) equivalent option if it exists.


Here are the things that I need to lock or hide

Start Button
Right clicking of taskbar
Right clicking of desktop
Taskbar notification icons
Desktop Icons
Windows key

Unfortunately after browsing through gpedit.msc, all I could see is the hiding of the desktop icons. I hope I'm just lost.


I have thought of backing up; modifying the registry; and noting down what I changed from both the XP and 98se computers then creating a keyboard shorcut for the programs that I need at the system32 folder. However, I would like to use regedit as a last resort since group policies sounds more attractive.

[TwoRails]

You may want to keep related questions to just one thread...

Here are some related threads:

http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=181391
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=181397
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=181396

[mairving]

There is no way to lock down Windows 98. Are these computers joined to a domain?

[JC00]

My apologies, Tworails.

Is there a way to combine all these threads?

Yes they are all joined in a domain.

[mairving]

You don't need to hide the start menu. You just need to limit what is on it. What I have done is to redirect the start menu and the desktop to a network share.

Here's how:

• Create a folder on a everyone share. I use \\domain controller name\netlogon\shortcuts.
• Inside of shortcuts I created a folder called Programs. Put any program that you want them to access in this folder.
• Create a folder inside this folder called startup and put any programs that you want to start on startup.
• Redirect the Start menu to \..\netlogon\shortcuts.
• Redirect the Desktop to ..\shortcuts\programs. That way both the desktop and the start menu will only have programs that you have in that folder to run.
• Also change the Startup folder to hidden or it will show up on the desktop.

All of the other ones can be locked down in the User settings of GP. Once you get them locked down enable loopback so that all users get the same settings. Put a deny for administrators or any other group that you want this policy to apply toback . This works for sure on XP/Vista. Most should work with Windows 2K. Windows 98 is a different story. Let me know if you need any more help. I can send you an adm file with some of the settings in it.