Windows XP Quandary

I am a computer technician in the company I work for. Now I have this one user who like to download a lot of junk and then calls every week to report system problems (crashes, performance decrease, etc..) Well I remember in Windows NT 4 there was an option to discard changes at shutdown, in the local security policy. I have looked through the policy editor in windows xp pro and with no luck. Does anyone out there know how to do this? Or, perhaps just how to disable the ability to install java applications. I normally would not make a setting change like this but it will cost the company allot of money in mileage reimbursement to keep driving an hour and a half to this location to fix this problem one a week. (I would do it by remote but all the stuff downloaded and installed is killing the connection to much to even grab remote control. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

 

If you want to fix the problem I would tell this person what is causing the problems. If they are downloading a load of junk I would defrag and download and run CCleaner (crap cleaner) which will ger rid of the junk.

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4191

I would also then run his/her antivirus program and see if anything comes up. I would also download and run spybot and adaware. They will get rid of spyware and adware which is often gotten when you download junk.

Spybot: http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2471
adaware: http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=506

 

Well They are perfectly aware of what is causing this. THey are not the brightest user of the bunch either. Ad aware is installed and is used once a week to correct the problem. But I want to restrict the user because they obviously have no self dicipline. Thank you for the suggestion about ccleaner I will take a look at that.

 

Take away the person in question's administrator permissions. Problem solved.

 

he doesn't have admin privilegdes. he is a restricted user. but Windows still allows the spyware progs to be downloaded when you click yes on the security warning. They don't really install themselves they just download the executable to the windows directory and then add themselves to your startup. You don't need admin priviledges for that. Hence why I need to just lock the machine down with discard changes at shutdown.

 

What sites does this person need to go to?

Lock it down to just those.

If its none, lock it down altogether.

 

does the guy do his job? if not then get his ass fired. problem solved

eric

 

Trust me I would love to make it that easy and have him fired, But I am not in that position. There is not company polocy against surfing on your break and lunch. I donot want to restrict his access because he will just use someone elses computer when he cant view a web page on his and then I am there taking care of that machine every week. So the goal is to allow free range surfing but without the annoying programs being downloaded, and educating the user is out the window. I don't mean to come off as a jerk if I am, I need to find how to keep windows xp pro from save any changes made during a user's login session. I know it was possible in NT 4.0 I've done it then. I figured the setting has just moved somewhere else or been renamed but I have been unable to find it, Figured this is the next best place after knowledge base.

 

Where exactly was this setting in Windows NT 4?

 

It was in poledit, aka local policy editor. I have scoured the local security policy in xp pro and have not found it.

 

configurable filtering service

 

Perhaps you could elaborate? Where to get it, or where is it? if it's a thrid party app, whats it called?