Controlling User Files

[Jacque King]

Hi Andrew,

I too have come across some of the frustrations you have with trying to
lock down what directories a patron has access to.  You are right, Office
apps are the worst culprit because they use cached settings which gives
them access to C:\Winnt even though you restricted it.  Also, hiding the
drives doesn't always work well because they are unaccessible to apps that
may need them.  I tried hiding drives too but had a fit trying to fix
things that broke afterwards.

Here's my solution:  purchase DriveShield from Centurion Technologies at
http://www.driveshield.com/driveshield.htm -- it is relatively inexpensive
(approx $30/license for Libraries) and it works great. DriveShield write
protects the hard drive except for a small writable space.  All file saves
and installations are re-directed to the writable space, which is wiped
clean on re-boot. What this means is that patrons can save to the hard
drive, delete files, re-format, whatever.  Then, all you need to do is
reboot the PC and it is restored to a known good state.

When I first read about this I thought patrons would be doing all kinds of
installations, etc. and that we would need to reboot the PCs constantly.
What we have found is that this is not at all true.  Because patrons can
save things easily, they actually do less damage then before.  Now, our
Internet stations pretty much maintain themselves.

Believe me, this has been a real time saver.  Now, I just lock down
access to the network, ability to add or delete printers, etc., but I
allow patrons to save anywhere on the hard drive.  Machines get rebooted
nightly so each morning we have a fresh machine.

We've had DriveShield installed on roughly 20 workstations for a few
months now and the machines are running smoothly.  We have over 100 public
workstations and I'm getting ready to beg for the money to install it on
all of our public machines.

Oh--you can also download a free demo!  Give it a try, I think you'll like
it.  Also, feel free to call or write with questions.

Hope this helps,

Jacque King
Library Technical Support Specialist
Fort Collins Public Library
201 Peterson Street
Fort Collins, CO  80524
(970) 221-6716
king at julip.fcgov.com