Not entirely sure whether this should be in off topic or not, so sorry if I'm mistaken.
Yesterday was my first day at a new college, unlike my old college, the network is incredibly restrictive compared to my old one, no installing anything, firefox portable just has a broken icon and won't load, no display control panel... The most I can do is run .exes from USB, and change the wallpaper.
In any case, I was wondering if anyone had been in a similar situation and found ways around such problems? I'm looking into trying thinstalling the programs I want to use at college, but I'm not entirely sure that'll work. The main thing I'd like to do is get rid of the horrible, horrible default gray windows theme, and hopefully the annoying screensaver.
Oh, and they've disabled editing of the registry by any means.
So, anybody care to help? Thanks in advance...
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There are loads of loop holes, I have found which allow you to do some things for the good of good.
Like on some computers they forgot to disable things like external file managers or external process mangers [ http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx to be portable serach forums for a portable luncher] which means you can kill the antivirals programs! (joke-Evil! mhararararararrr mhararararrr)
For a safe Portable external file manager try http://www.freecommander.com .
Also try this None portable app
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897557.aspx
BgInfo It makes a picture of various aspects of you computer and then sets it as your desktop. There is NO launcher for this, to my knowledge.
There is a portable, open source file manager/explorer called Xenon
Your third link points to Process Explorer There is a portable version of this in the forums. I know this because I wrote it. This is a link to all the launchers that I have done for is here.
Process Explorer Portable
Process Explorer Executable
Launcher
Process Explorer Portable Homepage
Nascent Mirror
Process Explorer Launcher
Homepage
Abushcrafter: Please, don't encourage hacking. While many member here utilize "back doors" to accomplish certain things, we don't every outrightly try to harm the system. We leave in the same shape as before. And we only utilize those back doors when absolutely necessary.
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Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
What I meant by "hack" is to try and find apps that do NOT damage the system but try and find apps that work because they allow it hence FreeComander and so hence I said it is safe.
As for biginfo That was last resort for things like the Internet ip address (I THINK!), Of which I have not used.
As for the task manger. That was to kill YOUR own apps which have crashed! As for saying you can kill the antivirals programs I just could not resist, but mention the possibility so I could use the very, very, very, very BAD evil Joke "mhararararararrr mhararararrr".
With Xenon It just dose not have enough features for me. Sorry.
set as wallpaperand we all know what that dose! so kids (I in year 9) would be doing that all the time, but as for me I have
The only file manger(or is it file explorer?) I know that needs a loop hole is ultraexplorer
Thank you for giving me the big hint hint that I should make my post better(I know, I am stupid!).
ps. Thanks for posting the links for the launchers.
I actually just use 7-zip. I rarely need it I usually just use explorer. But I have noticed sometimes that I need one to do something like this and 7-zip does it excellently.
Release Team Member
Change schools. I am completely serious. I went to a university with extremely locked-down systems. Even the labs used by information systems majors had right-click disabled. Believe it or not, the Save Page menu option in the web browser was greyed out.
I found out too late what a terrible decision I had made in attending that school. I am deeply in debt with a degree that is worth very little.
Institutions of higher learning are supposed to foster a free academic culture. Restricting their students in that manner indicates that they see them as being inferior. They think you should be an entry-level user. That is how my school was.
Colleges are great at keeping up appearances. To an outsider, they look like what most people expect in a school. There are, however, things that give away the true mission of a university. Make sure that their mission is the same as your mission.
Many great schools have good computing policies. Stanford even allowed Yahoo! on their servers. My school would have shut something like Yahoo! down within a week.
How about buying a laptop and using that?
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Well based on what he is saying the actual internet is filtered too plus they might not even allow him to have his own computer if it is that restrictive. I really don't see the purpose of college computers being locked down. Elementary school definitely. High School maybe, but definitely not College computers.
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"Claiming that your operating system is the best in the world because more people use it is like saying McDonalds makes the best food in the world..."
are not at all locked down. (Just that we can't change the time, or go onto google images, and it has Faronics DeepFreeze on it.)
In fact, they use the exact same system in elementary as middle as upper middle as (high?).
The reason is is that this applies only to the anonymous account (student), so that way we can get certain privs. in certains classes (ind. tech is fun).
The nearby college doesn't allow right click on windows apps, but they were nice enough to put FF on the PC's. But then there's the personal NetID accounts which are personal (only 255 MB of space though) and allow to do just about anything except disable the antivirus.
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The (3 Megabyte/second download) internet is not filtered at all here, and the only restricted computers are the Public access ones; old Pentium 4 models with 256 MB RAM and XP... all you can use is the web browser and other network apps like PuTTY.
90% of the computers on campus for regular student use are 2.6 GHz C2Ds with Vista, and the only limitations on student accounts are that of a standard Vista user (not Administrator). You can even install programs, as long as you choose a different directory. I have a laptop but since I commute I often don't even bother to bring it, and these computers are actually a lot more powerful.
There's also a limit of 4 GB per day, averaged over 5 days, but AFAIK specific protocols like BitTorrent aren't a problem, either.
I was trying to say that since your choice of college is one of the most important decisions of your whole life, and colleges go out of their way to make themselves look good, another way to gauge them is by getting a feel of their overall attitude toward their students. As a student, you should be in a better position to do this than outsiders.
At universities, school officials give influential outsiders tours of the campus to show how great their facilities are. I would sometimes witness this as I sat in the computer lab. Once, the guest commented how p*rn filters would be a great idea. Of course that was a horrible idea, but the tour guide (actually one of the better teacher I had) simply replied that that was one way of approaching it.
Of course, students, teachers and researchers in sociology, religious studies, women's studies, psychology, e-commerce, administration of justice and other fields may need to access p*rnography for their work.
However, Flash was completely disabled, and uninstallable (without a hack) due to lack of Admin privileges. The sound driver was disabled (so much for the Persons With Disabilities Act). Right clicks were disabled. Save Page As was disabled. Looking at the calendar was disabled. Even the stupid calculator was disabled. Logins were mandatory (I defied that with silly hacks), because they kept a record of all network activity. I found a keylogger installation, informed the staff, and was told that it was supposed to be there (although it was not activated). Misconduct was proven by hidden video surveillance.
My point is, how does your school see you? What how will that affect the quality of teaching? How will it affect your studies? Most important, how will it affect the perceived value of your degree in the future? Seasoned professionals often know a few of the dirty little secrets of your college of choice, and will often prejudge you based upon them.
Locked down computing environments and higher-learning don't make good bedfellows. Frankly, a school should not be concerned about what you do as long, as it does not abuse their resources. Fixing anything you break should simply be a reboot away.
I was just pointing out the contrast... this school is very open with computer privileges, so obviously such a system works. Of course, it's a technical school, so any attempts to lock stuff down probably wouldn't last too long.
Disabling right-click is really going too far. File operations (even if it's on your own storage device)? Close non-responsive programs? Copy/paste text? Half of the features of MS Word? Harmless things that should be available with a click suddenly require complex menus or multiple steps. That would seriously hinder productivity.
I completely agree that what is supposed to be advanced education for adults should not treat every student as a (high-risk) potential criminal. Might as well require a full body search before you can enter your dorm and have surveillance cameras in every room.
Did you file a complaint yet?
Did you try booting from a CD so that you can see what flaws there are with the file system?
Are they using a certain type of lockdown (WinSelect, SAM, etc. or just plain admin privs)?
Who knows?
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If they locked down the workstation, it is very likely they have disabled the CD-ROM/Floppy/USB/Network boot in the BIOS, as well as password-protecting it. If he can't physically reset the BIOS, he cannot really do something.
Are all they're using, as far as I can tell, and I think booting off a cd wouldn't work, something about a file contacting the network on boot up. Which struck me as odd seeing as booting from a live cd shouldn't necessarily use any files on any drives, but that's what they say...