Restriciting users to a particular website 1

[PPettit]

I've got about 8 offices where I need to provide access to a specific website. It's an online training site provided by a third party. We want to make these systems available all times, yet we don't want the employees to abuse them or use them for anything other than their intended purpose. My users should not be able to do anything other than go to this particular website.

I know I can run IE in kiosk mode at startup, but this is easy to bypass. I'm thinking of just buying some cheap PCs and locking them down as tightly as possible. This seems like it might be a lot of hassle, though. Are there any third-party apps that might make this process easier and make the systems more secure?

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?

 

[smah]

thread608-1293046
thread608-972928

And MS Steady State will do this very easily (plus a lot more if needed).

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/products/family/steadystate.mspx

 

[PPettit]

Thanks, smah.

SteadyState looks like it should do exactly what I need.

 

[PPettit]

This is just an update for anyone that's interested.

SteadyState does just about everything I wanted. The only problem with it is that the restriction controls aren't as "granular" as I would like in some cases.

I really would like to have more control over the start menu and desktop. I'm not exactly sure why, but some program/folder icons still showed up even at the highest restriction settings. I solved this by hiding, disabling, and/or manually deleting the shortcuts. I wish it would hide/disable everything but the "Log Off" menu option by default.

The other problem I have is that there are some system tray icons that I want to appear in some profiles but not in others. So far, it appears that your choices are limited to "show them to everyone" or "show them to no one". Mainly, these are the Symantec AV and Local Area Connection icons. The restricted users can't really do anything with the applications but I would like it if the icons didn't show up at all.

Overall, it was very easy to set up and use.

 

[PBXJay]

Has anyone had any negative experiences with System State?