Restricting user account access

[AlteredState]

Heya all,

Right, i have my sister in law coming over for a week with her 3 teenagers, whom undoubtably will use the internet thru my system which im cool with...to an extent.
I wanna set up a seperate user account, and on it disable absolutely everything other than access to my router and thereby the internet. Obviously i dont want them to have admin rights as i dont want any of them downloading any crap and corrupting my system.

Im using xp pro sp2, and activated the guest account to test it, yet i could still access all of my private info on my normal admin account which im always logged in under, something which i obviously dont want a bunch of teenagers prying thru.

Therefore, how do i set up a user account thru which they can access and basically do nothing with other than just access the web, but without the ability to install any plug ins etc

Thanks in advance

[Chris12]

Create a 'limited user' account via the 'User Accounts' icon.

They won't be able to install any program (not even change the time!) :D

[AlteredState]

But wont they still be able to access my personal files and use currently installed programs anyway even if i do create a limited account?

[sandmanx]

But wont they still be able to access my personal files and use currently installed programs anyway even if i do create a limited account?

You can change permissions on the files so they are only accessible for you. It can be a real PITA though and changing the wrong file can mean a reload.

[AlteredState]

Thanks sandmanx, now please excuse my ignorance and how exactly do i do that? Treat me like an idiot...lol. Ive never created secondary accounts let alone place restrictions on them. I have been messing around with it for the last few hours, but to no avail.

I dont want them to be able to access anything whatsoever other than the internet.

[Chris12]

They can't change anything (i.e. can't delete/install ANYTHING). The tightest restriction is too make a file read only (i.e they can only 'see' the files, do nothing else).

Alternatively you can 'hide' the files:

1. Right click on a folder
2. Select 'hide' and they won't be able to see it unless they're very techie-minded and have some hacking tools up their sleeve.

[hity645]

If you have the Pro version of Windows XP there are more user setting you can use from the Management console.

Right Click My Computer > Manage > Local Users... > Groups

Hope this helps a lil..

[Langford]

Although my own instincts lead to do it the old by-hand NT4 way, it occurs to me that there is an automated method in XP.

Check this page and see if it tells you what you need to know. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298399/

[AlteredState]

Thanks all, got it sorted..... now the little b******* cant do a thing :) lol. cheers all

[kuyaglen]

Install a key-logger.

[AlteredState]

I think i did it the best way, got 5 different machines, all really crap and useless, none of which worked, stripped them down and made 1 working one and attached it to my network. So, thats got a huge (cough cough) 6gb drive and an amazing intel celeron 600mhz cpu. Can guarentee they arent gonna b doing any damage with THAT. It barely runs win2k and the harddrive wants to blow up everytime u ask it to do something by the ratching noises it makes when spinning. Now they get to leave my baby alone. They arrive tomorrow.....:(