Creative thinking

[byh.livejournal.com]

"Attention to all Windows 98 users! According to changes in security policy it is strictly forbidden to create or use shared folders. All shared folders are to be closed and their contents transferred to corresponding server shares available for each department."

In a week all shared folders are closed. Very well.
In another week everyone sitting on Win98 shares drives.

Comments

[canthlian.livejournal.com]

In a week all shared folders are closed. Very well.
In another week everyone sitting on Win98 shares drives.

Oh my god... I'm embarrassed to be in the same species as these people.

*Tries to hide behind the Alpaca*

[pisceandreamer.livejournal.com]

Um, OK, I don't do networking tech, but am I reading this right?

No shared folders, but an entire drive instead? (And doesn't it follow that said shared drive will have folder on it, that well, would be shared?)

[canthlian.livejournal.com]

"No, but you see, I'm not sharing a folder!"
"... I have a headache. I'm going to lie down."

[byh.livejournal.com]

"Yes, you share a drive but by doing so you open uncontrolled access to every folder on it making all your data openly shared and vulnerable to leaks or virus attacks"

"You see.. but how they'll find my documents on my drive if they don't know where are they?"

"Right. Taking into consideration how yesterday you saved your marketing plan in c:\windows\system folder without an extension you may be so very right."

[byh.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

So we had to correct it with "shared resource".

[pisceandreamer.livejournal.com]

*headdesk*

[coyoteden.livejournal.com]

The solution to that "workaround" is to follow the existing policy:

Transfer the contents of the shared drives to the file server...
and then empty them.

[byh.livejournal.com]

I didn't think about it.

But next time..

[jjjiii]

From my POV, any security policy that allows Win98 on the network is inherently flawed.

[torkell]

It is actually possible to secure Win98 against acts of luser. Unfortuantly, doing so generally renders the machine unuseable by anyone. Unless you have a way to stick these two chainsawed halves of a machine back together again.

[byh.livejournal.com]

Oh, there is another way.

First you disable all potentially dangerous functions and uninstall excess components. Then you go to system registry and disable whatever is left. Then you install firewall, antivirus scanner, domain support patch, an utility to lock system files from being changed, another utility to prevent files from one user profile from being changed by another user and an utility to prevent other software from writing to system files. Then you'll have to optimize the paging file and clean and optimize registry with two more utilities.

And you get a decent workstation except it bluescreens every now and then. When frequency of bluescreening becomes too frustrating (like every 15 minutes) you just format the drive and recover it with a volume image you made beforehand. That way Win98 could work for ages!

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I remember a program that replaced the explorer shell with a limited access shell that only launches allowed programs, and to switch back to the regular "explorer" shell you had to enter an admin password... so not only can you limit the programs they could run but you coule limit where they could save stuff. I saw it in a library several years back.

[byh.livejournal.com]

I bet it still allows launching whatever users want?

Does it block access to registry? (well, I am not sure you tried but who knows... :))

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

It only allowed you to run a list of programs you supplied, so no regedit, no start run command, actually I don't believe it had a start menu, you just had a bunch of icons that the administrator allowed you to have, and you couldn't browse disks to run things, so you couldn't just double click on a data file to open the associated file, you had to open the allowed program and then open your data file. I beleive IE was also secured so you didn't have the option to run things, you could only save to disk. Wish I could remember the name of the

[kerberos.livejournal.com]

One could do this if you ran Novell network. You just substitute a thing in win.ini .

It's oh so fun to do to folks at work. I usually just replace it with just the calculator or watch.

hilarity ensues.

[byh.livejournal.com]

Minesweeper.

That's the choice.

Next time someone decides to share their drives they are guaranteed to get proficient at minesweeping.

[lestp.livejournal.com]

Talisman (http://www.lighttek.com/talisman.htm) protected (http://www.lighttek.com/themes2/example_hotel.htm) interface (http://www.lighttek.com/themes2/example_gameclub.htm)?

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

Might be it. Though it looks alot better then I remember from 7 years ago.

[byh.livejournal.com]

I agree however we still have a couple of coffins which are unable to run anything else except Win9x or (perhaps) NT. But certain specific software doesn't work on NT so we have to survive.

But I make sure that every power glitch burns at least one of these so not many of them left.

[theogrin.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you're looking for a good shell, I seem to recall that Windows 98 still has a legacy copy of 'progman.exe', which I'm certain many of you recall from the era before Win95. Older staff may find it interesting to reminisce and wonder exactly how lusers would respond to finding it as their new, shiny shell.

[byh.livejournal.com]

Yep.

Rather interesting shell by the way. It allows to be locked so users can't change the arrangement of groups and shortcuts.