question

[gendr4]

I let my parents and my siblings use my pc, and i have xp pro, and i was wondering how i would go about configuring my system so that it would log what they do and that they couldn't access all of my programs or my files. and i want to be the only one allowed to install even to their usernames, i have tried to play with the configurations but i can never seem to get it quite right.

 

[sdibias]

First of all what kind of files system are you using? FAT32? NTFS? If you're using NTFS you could use the folder permissions to only allow you to access them.

The reason your family can install programs is because by default XP makes every account an Administrator account with full acceess rights. To change this you should go into the Control panel and click on "User Accounts". Then click on the accounts and choose the account type for "limited" as opposed to Administrator. You could also change this by right clicking on "My Computer" and choosing manage then choosing "users and groups".

You could also creat GPOs (Group Policie Objects) to control the environment and limit what users can do. You have the option to turn on "Auditing" which will track what users are trying to do. Then you can use evernt viewer to comb thru the events. Another cool function is something called disk quotas which allows you to configure how much space users can use on the HDDs. But this is your family, they may get pissed off.

You could always use 3rd party software to monitor users and log keystrokes but you must be aware that it can get you in trouble.

 

[Jahya]

I'm in the same boat, I have a girlfriend and her kid (10 yrs) that use my comp (much to my disliking) and here's what I did, first off I made them restricted profiles, this means they can install unless the install will alter protected OS files. Then I used permissions to completely block them out of my D, E & F drives. I also used permissions to modify which programs on the C drive they can access. This DID piss my g/f off a good bit, but she got over it and as for her kid, I could really care less if it pissed him off b/c he has this amazing ability to destroy anything he touches without effort or thought. Many programs like NIS have password protect options that prevent anyone but me (since I'm the only one with the password) from altering the settings or disabling. Basically, I made it so that the kid can only access IE, Outlook Express, THPS3 and Madden 2003 and my g/f can access all programs on C except for Bulletproof FTP Server, NeoTrace, NIS, and Excursion. I did this by taking ownership of the .exe files and denying access to their profiles.

Hope this helps I actually found a link to a tutorial about securing folders/files from this site, but d@mned if I can remember what thread it was in.

Also, this can only be done if you have NTFS drives/partitions.

 

[gendr4]

ntfs

i am using ntfs right now, and thanks for the input. i think i will be able to figure it out from there, but any further advice would be great. btw, what third party software would monitor the keystrokes and files accesed? namely b/c my bro has some knowledge about pc's and knows how to delete the history and ect. and i want to be certain that he isn't try to pull any fast ones on me, ever since i created him a user i have had 3 system crashes but i can never find what he might have done so i want to be able to see everything done. thanks