Vista Home Premium user account access to thumbdrives & printers

Hi, I have two highschool daughters with laptops they use at school
running Vista Home Premium. I have them running on user accounts and I
don't want them to have the admin password because if they know what it
is they will simply start typing it in all the time, which defeats the
whole purpose of running as a user account.

There are only two things they need to do that Vista Home Premium UAC
doesn't seem to allow without the admin password - connect thumbdrives
and connect printers. They need to do both of these things at school.

Is there any way to disable the admin account security only on these
two tasks?

Also I can easily upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate. If Vista Home Premium
can't do it, would upgrading to W7 Ultimate enable me to potentially
resolve this security problem?

Thumbdrives are the new CD/DVD so it seems really shortsighted not to
have a CD/DVD-style security model for them.


--
bigteks
Posted via

 

bigteks wrote:
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
>
> Hi, I have two highschool daughters with laptops they use at school
> running Vista Home Premium. I have them running on user accounts and I
> don't want them to have the admin password because if they know what it
> is they will simply start typing it in all the time, which defeats the
> whole purpose of running as a user account.
>
> There are only two things they need to do that Vista Home Premium UAC
> doesn't seem to allow without the admin password - connect thumbdrives
> and connect printers. They need to do both of these things at school.
>
> Is there any way to disable the admin account security only on these
> two tasks?
>
> Also I can easily upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate. If Vista Home Premium
> can't do it, would upgrading to W7 Ultimate enable me to potentially
> resolve this security problem?
>
> Thumbdrives are the new CD/DVD so it seems really shortsighted not to
> have a CD/DVD-style security model for them.<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->

There is no problem using a USB thumb drive from a Standard account. There
is also no problem using a printer on another network like the School's if
that printer has already been installed. There must be another issue in play
here but without more information, I can't address it. Give us some more
details to go forward with troubleshooting.

*All* user accounts that are used for daily work should be Standard users,
including yours. Create an administrative user called "CompAdmin" or "Tech"
or the like and then log into it. Change your user type to Standard and then
log into your account. "CompAdmin" will only be used for elevation and
emergencies.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!

 

"Malke" <malke@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:ewzv$wsOKHA.1280@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
>
> There is no problem using a USB thumb drive from a Standard account.<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->

But there might be if a Policy is in force on the domain. I've been in
organisations where a Group Policy disallowed thumbdrives and/or CDR/RW
disks....

 

Gordon wrote:
<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
>
> "Malke" <malke@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
> news:ewzv$wsOKHA.1280@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...<!--coloro:green--><span style="color:green <!--/coloro-->
>>
>> There is no problem using a USB thumb drive from a Standard account.<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->
>
> But there might be if a Policy is in force on the domain. I've been in
> organisations where a Group Policy disallowed thumbdrives and/or CDR/RW
> disks....<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->

Which is one of the numerous reasons I already said we needed more
information to give focused help.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!

 

"Malke" <malke@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:ewzv$wsOKHA.1280@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...<!--coloro:blue--><span style="color:blue <!--/coloro-->
>
> bigteks wrote:
><!--coloro:green--><span style="color:green <!--/coloro-->
>>
>> Hi, I have two highschool daughters with laptops they use at school
>> running Vista Home Premium. I have them running on user accounts
>> and I
>> don't want them to have the admin password because if they know
>> what it
>> is they will simply start typing it in all the time, which defeats
>> the
>> whole purpose of running as a user account.
>>
>> There are only two things they need to do that Vista Home Premium
>> UAC
>> doesn't seem to allow without the admin password - connect
>> thumbdrives
>> and connect printers. They need to do both of these things at
>> school.
>>
>> Is there any way to disable the admin account security only on
>> these
>> two tasks?
>>
>> Also I can easily upgrade to Windows 7 Ultimate. If Vista Home
>> Premium
>> can't do it, would upgrading to W7 Ultimate enable me to
>> potentially
>> resolve this security problem?
>>
>> Thumbdrives are the new CD/DVD so it seems really shortsighted not
>> to
>> have a CD/DVD-style security model for them.<!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->
>
> There is no problem using a USB thumb drive from a Standard account.
> There
> is also no problem using a printer on another network like the
> School's if
> that printer has already been installed. There must be another issue
> in play
> here but without more information, I can't address it. Give us some
> more
> details to go forward with troubleshooting.
>
> *All* user accounts that are used for daily work should be Standard
> users,
> including yours. Create an administrative user called "CompAdmin" or
> "Tech"
> or the like and then log into it. Change your user type to Standard
> and then
> log into your account. "CompAdmin" will only be used for elevation
> and
> emergencies.
><!--colorc--><!--/colorc-->

I agree about the USB thumb drives - I've never needed administrator
privileges to use USB drives, so something else is at work here.

As to the printers, if they need to install new printers (not an
unusual thing to need to do when taking the computer to a new
environment), they are prevented from installing new drivers if they
do not have administrator privileges.

Fortunately, this can be changed by setting a group policy that allows
signed drivers of a particular driver class to be installed by
non-administrators. To do this, launch Group Policy Editor
(gpedit.msc), and under Local Computer Policy navigate to Computer
Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, Driver Installation.
Double-click "Allow non-administrators to install drivers for these
device setup classes," and set the policy to Enabled. Click the Show
button to enter the device classes. Click Add and enter a value of
{4d36e979-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318} and click OK. Click OK to all
dialog boxes, then close the group policy editor.

For Home versions of Vista, you have to edit the registry since they
don't include the group policy editor. Save the following as a .reg
file and merge it (requires administrator permissions, of course).
Lines that do not start with two spaces have been line wrapped and
will need to be re-assembled:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DriverInstall\Restrictions\AllowUserDeviceClasses]
"1"="{4d36e979-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}"

Both approaches can be used for other device classes, see
for a list.

Remember, this only works for signed drivers. Also, the drivers need
to be extracted to a location you have access to - that is, the .inf
and other required files need to be stored somewhere, and you won't be
able to run an exe file to extract or install them on the Vista PC
since that requires administrator privileges as well...

--
Zaphod

Arthur Dent, speaking to Trillian about Zaphod:
"So, two heads is what does it for a girl?"
"...Anything else he's got two of?"