A Free Way to Protect Your Family and Your Business Computers

RTA Information Technology, Tempe, Arizona

Microsoft's Shared Computer Toolkit for Windows XP is a free and little-known way to protect your family's or your business' computers from damage and unauthorized use.

Don't want your kids or your employees to browse the Internet? The Toolkit can restrict users, on a per-person basis, from accessing Internet Explorer, Firefox, or other browsers.

With the free User Restrictions tool, you can:
* Restrict access to Windows system utilities
* Prohibit access to important data
* Prevent users from running unauthorized software
* Simplify the start menu

Want to stop your kids or employees from making changes to menus or the desktop, from installing programs, or allowing malware to modify critical system files?

With the free Disk Protection tool, you can:
* Protect operating system files
* Clear changes when the computer restarts
* Automate critical and antivirus updates
* Choose to save changes to disk

These tools take advantage of the little-known local Security Policies available on Windows XP (both Home and Professional versions). Companies that use a Windows Server can create Group Policies to do the same thing. But home users or companies that don't have a Server can take easily take advantage of the local Security Policies with these tools.

Give these free tools a try. But do it NOW, BEFORE damage is done to your home or business computers. As I've noted in previous Blog commentaries, repairing a malware invasion on a PC can cause dangerous leaks of private information and can render your PC useless.