FJJP

At work, I have someone who continually fiddles with printer settings. He tries to fix the odd 'glitch' himself and succeeds in screwing up a load of other settings in the process, rather than call me to fix it.

Is there any way I can put control panel and settings behind a password so that I can control access?

Win 2K and XP Pro on a 13 workstation network - I am the administrator with full rights.

FunkyMunky

Not sure about 2K but on XP, run "gpedit.msc" to access the Group Policy Editor. There's some security options for disabling access to the control panel and printer options under "User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Control Panel". I've got no idea how effective these are but they look promising



Edit: I've just fiddled with a few of these and it appears they have an effect on Administrator accounts as well, which may not be useful.

nwaflygirl

Try this:

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm

Coconutty

You could also try "Tweak Manager" - a program that lets you apply all sorts of restrcitions, which include preventing access to Control Panel, or just some of the items within Control Panel.
( There are over 1000 different "tweaks" that can be applied via a simple windows type user interface ).

The restrictions can be applied to individual users, so you can remove the Control Panel access for one user, and leave it available to others.

You can download the program for evaluation for 30 days for free here : Tweak Manager 2.1

If you are as impressed as I was with the program you can then pay the licence fee ( US $39.95 ) for the full product, or if not just uninstall it.

Buttino

You can't password protect the control panel itself, but if you implement Group Policy it will be come your friend!

Also make sure the user in question doesn't have admin rights to the PC they're tinkering with. Check this out by opening computer management and local groups. See who's in the local admin group. You can do this remotely should you wish to keep your intentions secret!