# Configuring Guest Account Permissions



## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Hi again,

I have my laptop with XP on it. I have setup the guest account so that guests can log on without using my admin account. Now I have run into a couple barriers that I can't figure out how to get around. I was hoping for a little help in these areas.

1. I can't figure out a way to restrict access to the control panel icons. I pretty much want to hide things like Folder Options so users can't unhide hidden folders & protected system files. Also, I don't want them adjusting the display properties like the screen saver.

2. I want to adjust the power options in the guest account, but the problem is I need admin privileges to adjust the power options and I don't know how to modify the guest account from my admin account.

Now here comes the tricky part: I am not on a domain and am running XP Home. I know many of the settings found in the group policy editor can also be changed individually in the registry, but these I can't find.

Any help would be appreciated.


----------



## BMR777 (Apr 27, 2005)

Almost any setting you can edit with gpedit.msc you can also edit with the registry. You can find a huge list of policies and their registry keys here.

You may have problems changing these settings under the guest account. I recommend that you make a new account and make it an Admin account. Log in to it and apply the policy changes you want. Once it is locked down how you like, go back to the main Admin account and then make the account to be locked down a limited account. Then have users log in to the limited account and not the guest account.

You can also use something like Windows SteadyState to lock down your system.

BMR777


----------



## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

Thanks. Here is my plan: I added Guest to the Users group and then gave Guest permissions to use regedit.exe so I can make the changes in HKCU. Then I will just switch those back over. I will let you know how it goes.


----------



## TheMatt (May 9, 2006)

That actually worked out quite well. I had to set Guest as an Administrator because the Users group didn't have privileges to make changes to the Power Options and there is no Power Users group on XP Home. Now to go in and attempt to tweak using the Guest account to see if it works.


----------

