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On the note of homes with multiple kids ...?
As a virus removal guru for years, I'm attempting to (theorize at least) "create/design" a simplified user login for home computers that would allow Younger kids around say from 5 up to 11 to go online to their playing games websites, and older kids to do what they do online (dload music, webchats, facebooks/etc) without being able to damage an admin user's operating system.
Cpl choices so far ;
1) INSTANTANEOUS boot to a "virtual machine environment" with the win.ini and group security settings, etc adjustments. So far this is looking like the best possible option from most angles, including ease of setting up the same basic bootfile set and just creating the correct links to the right virtmachine settings file for each Win version. (Kids = CE + kiosk mode IExplorer to theiorown links (homemade)HTMLFile, older teens = XP Home with a Nanny program or some other such monitor software **if they request it**.
2) A multi-bootable OS selected from the main startup menus, as we did in the old days. Multiple OS'es installed on a single machine under 2 different folders or partitions. The kids would share a single XP setup and user logins would be monitored on it with an Admin account occassionally, while the adult(s) maintained their own partition-installed OS. (Too much to maintain!!).
3) A switchable hard drive power supply from a physical switch on the system case. Another project I never finished but wish I did. Each hard drive has it's own users set up and flipping the drive switch before the power switch selects which hard drive the system uses.
4) Last and most difficult for me personally due to lack of experience with the particulars of the OS (never had admin rights on a version to play around with) would be setting up a "Windows Server" type of situation with multiple user profiles that are used on bootup by each login ID. (do-able by XP I bet, but no luck researching it either yet).
Need some opinion from experienced users/admins/geeks on the best method for novice users to control, and to limit when I'd have to be called in for a cleanup and recovery/rebuild of the kids' OS.
Last option, (many people still trying to get it right) = a bootable system flashdrive held by each of the family members and setting the BIOS to boot from USB first. NOT viable for today's generic parents, and not a secure environment to store parents' flashdrives.
Thanks all ... and Good Luck!
So far with 2 answers there's a spam for a monitoring software which has nothing to do with my question, and theres an answer I liked getting, but that kind of repeats what I've already noted with a lot of typing in the question. Has anybody designed either a Kid-dows version for virtual machine settings or a kiosk mode "tiny XP" type of OS/overlay?.
Last note is that I'm looking at this from the entry angle of securing a system that's already been running a suingle user login for however long, since I would be called ion at the point that problems start with security, favorites, and organizing school, play, and adult files on the same system for 3 users under an XP version.
On answer 2 btw - A) would be more of removing lots of unnecessary icons they can click that can cause system problems, B) would be more of creating a more easily rebuildable and wipable kid's sub-system, and C) would translate to not actually creating a seperate space for each kid, but instead to seperate the kids storage and system files from the Admin so virus recovery doesn't mean pulling a hard drive for secondary cable installation/cleaning/repartitionings when the kids get a virus/malware.
Enjoying the back-n-forth btw.
Well, just in case anybody's following this topic, or gets it in a search result ...
I have happened across a VERY good solution about a month after posting this. It's called "Doudou linux", and is an actual fully kid-based OS CD that doesn't access a system's harddrive AT ALL, & removes all software that can damage the system / files.
It's supposed to run on older systems - making a used laptop an option for each kid at about $40US, BUT it's newest version is on a DVD, so the read-speed needs to be pretty good for a laptop.
G'Luck!!, and thx for all the help!!
2 Answers
- 1 decade ago
I personally think you might be doing a bit too much work for a simple objective.
Your objectives would be to:
A) Restrict user-access(to whatever the admin decides them to be restricted to)
B) Prevent any damage from being inflicted via malware
C) Have private space for kids & adults
A full-blown virtual-machine is definately overkill.
Multi-boot is too tedious as you said but is also a little overkill
You don't need to mess with the hardware.
Windows Server is an ok idea I guess; but it could also be considered a little overkill + the license can be a little expensive.
To solve the first & last task:
You can probably develop a driver quite easily that monitors, hides or restricts access to certain parts of the file system. You can also 'link' directories allowing users t ohave different desktops and documents and setting, etc..
The second task:
It's really difficult to stop any sort of virus from being installed, but if you really want to do it: I would take a look at the smaller virtual machines(those that don't emulate an entire OS, but an environment for a single application). There are a couple that are open-sourced and I bet with a bit of tweaking you can get them working they way you need them.