Stripping down Windows for a 7-year old

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

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This is Vista Home Basic, btw, which probably doesn't make too much difference. I believe anything you can do with Group Policy you can do with the registry for individual accounts.

So far I've disabled Control Panel, the system tray and run command will be next, but I'm looking for suggestions and things I might miss. The aim is to lock down the machine as close to 100% as possible.

I considered replacing explorer.exe as the default shell but I'm not sure what I'd replace it with, exactly...

I will probably also remove all traverse/view contents permissions for the C: drive; hopefully this will be good enough to allow desktop shortcuts to run but not allow him to find new .exe files to mess around with :p

As for the internet I thought my best option was the filters provided by OpenDNS. I've tested it a bit; seems they caught most pr0n sites but you can always find a couple if you dig a little.

Anyone have any ideas?
 
FoxEye said:
Thanks, but I'll be needing to do this on another machine at some point which will likely be running 7. Best not to get too used to something which is being deprecated in a month ;)

I don't mind playing with regedit; not a bit. I just need to make sure I cover all the bases.
Click to expand...

To be fair what big changes will be happening with Vista where it going EOL will matter. ;)

Best bet is to google what you're after, I found a page a few years ago that documented what registry values you needed to change for the majority of Group Policy but can't find it now. :(
 
groen said:
don't disable anything, let him break it.

if you are worried about the internet, then install parental control software to block porn.
Click to expand...

He's 7. He +will+ break it and he'll learn next to nothing in the process.

I didn't start breaking PCs until I was 11 or 12 :p But at that age you can have a good understanding of actions and consequences, and you can even start to fix the things you break (I had to write MS-DOS config files at that age!).

If he was a bit older, and the right mindset, I'd give him a normal admin account. He isn't, and he isn't, and I won't :p
 
Tbh, teach him how to install windows, let him break it. He will learn the hard way not to mess with things you can't fix, because of the re-install time.
 
groen said:
don't disable anything, let him break it.

if you are worried about the internet, then install parental control software to block porn.
Click to expand...
This.

It's not like he'll make the CPU blow up or something hardware related.

If you strip everything out, he wont learn how to use Windows. He'll just get used to your mutilated version of Windows. Let him explore windows as it was made. I was only about 5 when we got our first PC with Windows 95 on it. I used to love sitting and exploring around. I don't think I ever messed anything up, my mum trusted me!

Just tell him he can look at system files, but not delete them; or it'll break. He won't risk breaking it.


Just use v-lite to make an unattended install disc. It'll make it much easier to reinstall if something goes wrong.
 
Last edited:
Just give him a standard user account with UAC enabled

And

Firefox + adblock plus + easylist

or

Chrome + adblock + easylist
 
Standard Account + UAC should be enough. He wont have rights to make system-wide changes. The worst he can do is screw up his own profile, which of course is safely backed up along with the rest of your data. Yes? HA! I bet you've never done a backup in your life! :p

I would be more concerned about Internet usage than what he does with Windows itself. As an alternative to editing the registry manually, you could give Windows Live Family Safety a go. Should work on Vista and 7.
 
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