[OPLINTECH] clever children...

[Kozick, Gregory]

We use Software Restriction Policies through Microsoft Group Policy to limit the programs that can be run from our public machines. The public can still save and download files; they can even download programs, but they can’t run them. Only what Windows needs to function and the official list of supported applications can be run from a public user account.



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Greg Kozick, MCSA
Network Services Coordinator

direct: 330-643-9144 • mobile: 330-351-9446 • email: gkozick at akronlibrary.org<mailto:gkozick at akronlibrary.org>
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From: Chad Neeper [mailto:cneeper at level9networks.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 5:33 PM
To: oplintech at lists.oplin.org
Subject: Re: [OPLINTECH] clever children...

Process Explorer is a very, very useful tool that has been around and in continual development for a long time. Microsoft acquired the company and the lead developer several years ago. It definitely worth keeping in your arsenal.

I'm not familiar with the workings of pcreservation, but if the program that the patrons are killing is a Windows Service, you might be able to find the service and, in the Recovery tab, set the service to auto-restart after failure. That may or may not restart the service in your particular case, where the user is terminating the service intentionally (not a failure, per se), but it would help if the service just spontaneously crashed on its own.

Also in the service's General tab, you may find the exact command used to launch the service. You might be able to schedule a task to restart the service upon event of it's termination. Windows 7 (if you're using it) has enhanced task scheduling capabilities. You'd need to explore the execute on event trigger to see if you could trigger the task upon termination of your particular program/service.

Those thoughts are what popped into my head first.

HTH,
Chad

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Chad Neeper
Senior Systems Engineer

Level 9 Networks
740-548-8070 (voice)
866-214-6607 (fax)

Full LAN/WAN consulting services -- Specialized in libraries and schools

On 2/22/2012 4:35 PM, R Young wrote:

... have found a way to circumvent our pc reservation time limit system.

they log on as usual, then launch a program called process explorer to kill

the pcreservation program.  this allows them to stay on for an unlimited

amount of time.



I just discovered this today, and the things I have tried have not been

foolproof in preventing them from launching the program.  We allow people to

save to flash drives, and I don't want to restrict that.  However, using

Windows 2003 server, and setting restrictions on launching programs from

removable media doesn't prevent a user from launching process explorer from

a flash drive.



Does anyone have any suggestions?  Is there something I have overlooked.

(Parenthetically, this program seems like it would be a handy tool for

techies looking for a quick way to close programs; much more elegant than

task manager--and free, to boot.)



thanks for any help



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