Re: settings and properties

[Daniel Hallmark <dgh@scott.net>]

On Wed, 7 Oct 1998, Gerald Myers wrote:

> I have a nephew who is autistic - he loves the computer. However, over
> a period of time he has grown bored with the applications and is now
> into changing the Window's Settings and the Properties of everything
> (he has never met a menu he didn't like). Unfortunately he can't tell
> you what he did, and his parents are forced to reinstall Windows
> (often!!).
> 
> My first question - is there some way I can write a program that will
> intercept ALL Window calls to the properties menu (both right mouse
> button and the keyboard). It would have to be a program that gets the
> calls before Windows gets them because I don't want him changing the
> screen properties again, or formatting the hard drive.
> 
> My second question - this is not really a Builder question, but is
> there someway I can stop access to the Settings/Control Panel menu
> option on the Start Menu (or even the entire Start Menu).
> 
> While I'm on a roll - is there anyway to hide the Recycle Bin (other
> than the invisible icon I'm using now). 


I don't know if this would solve all of your problems, but I'd strongly 
suggest that you get a copy of the Windows95 Resource Kit from your local 
bookstore (I'm assuming they are using 95 and not NT).  There is a whole 
section on setting up user profiles and system policies.  You can do 
thinks like disabling the control panel, hide the settings tab in the 
display page etc...

These sort of things are built into the OS for corporate rollouts where a 
company wants to retain centralized control over PC configuration (so 
employees don't go messing up their PCs etc.), so I imagine it would 
work well in this case.

I haven't read all the information on the topic and I'm not sure if there 
are any programmatic ways to set these policies, but MS does supply a 
system policy editor and the book will at least give you a starting 
point.

Daniel Hallmark