Microsoft® Windows® XP Networking and Security Inside Out: Also Covers Windows 2000

Restricting Access to Programs

When you're wearing your administrator's hat, you might want to limit which programs users can run. Your motive might be productivity—in a small office, you might not want your employees to spend their day playing FreeCell or Pinball. Or you might decide to restrict access to programs in the interest of system stability. After all, once you have your computer running smoothly, the last thing you want is for someone else to install a poorly written program that drags down performance or causes unexplained crashes.

The good news is that you can prevent cooperative users from installing untrusted or nonsecure applications. The bad news is that an uncooperative user can almost always find a way to work around any restrictions ...