How to prevent any user from installing new apps

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nRiTeCh

nRiTeCh

Oracle
On winxp how restrict/ prevent ANY user from installing new software except me.
My machine is used by me, my bro and cousin. And all want their a/cs to have admin privilege. So cant put them into local users. They keep on installing unnecessary stuffs.
I googled bt didnt found any GPO setting nor any registry tweak.

BT got a tool Install-Block, its usefull bt i dont want to rely on such third party solutions.

I have a reg tweak for disabling/enabling usb ports, can there be any such similar reg hack for software installtion?
 
As long as everyone has admin privileges, I think it'll be difficult to restrict what they do to your machine.. Better keep others as non-admins. Or you can use third-party apps.
 
Their are many ways to do that:

One way:

Stop Windows Installer service, if your niece know how to enable that then modifr registry and change:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSIServer -> Image Path:

"ImagePath"="C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe /V"

To

"ImagePath"="C:\WINDOWS\system32\msiexec.exe"

this way they won't be able to start the service again.
 
yup the best way to do is by nt granting admin privileges to others.

the other way around is disabling Windows Installer Service.
 
Ummm.... why do they want to be admins, if not to install stuff? Most (but not all) common software works on a per-user basis (games being one big and bad exception).
 
Install Windows 7 :P Actually this is one feature of Windows 7 I was really impressed with. PC Safeguard. This lets your less technical users log on, play games, use the browser or chat on an instant messenger, say, just as normal. But when they log off, any settings they've changed are undone, and any files they've saved are deleted. Which means it's much more difficult to mess up your PC.
 
Yes, I think it is on the same lines.

But if you are worried about chronology, there are two things you should know.

1. Windows XP had a guest account since the beginning - but that didn't purge files after every logout. Which leads into...

2. Windows SteadyState - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - which had a policy to purge all changes on reboot/logoff, force auto-logoff etc.

They probably figured that since the guest account was such a common use of steady state, it made sense to build it in.

Also, since Steady State is free (I believe), it may do some of what the original poster asks for.
 
thx a lot for contributing.

Restricting the msi installer just denies .msi installations and not rest normal setups.

Found some s'wares-----Install-Block & Stop Software Installation Tool which came to my rescue. Both are gr8 tools to work with.

But still want smthing from windows os to do it xcept disablling msi installer.
 
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