Password Protection for Programs

It depends - are you looking to just stop the casual passerby running something mischieous, or do you need to create a completely locked down system which you can leave open for people to try and hack for long periods?

If the later, then you could go down the route of system policies, strong passwords, and running something like DeepFreeze to undo anything people might get up to even if they get arround the restrictions - but you'll probably find the system a pain to use yourself!

If the former, then what's wrong with Win+L, and just logging back in when you return?

Casual passerby....Win+L is easiest way I know of. Wondering if there was anything else out there. Thanks Sput

Essencay - if it's a particular prog that someone insists on running when you turn your back, then (as long as you don't need to run it!) you could use the system policy restriction to deny particular programs from running...See this tip:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kben-us323525

It might be what you want?

Hmmm...I can't make that link work, but if a copy and paste the address in directly to IE it works!

OK, go here http://support.microsoft.com/

and search for KB323525

That should get you there!
[Message Edited]

as long as you don't need to run it!...yeah that's the problem, I still need to be able to run these programs/keep others from being stopped. Example: Having someone shutdown your firewall or run regedit, sysedit, etc.

Yikes...then Win+L is your friend in such a war zone...I do it habitually since I often deal with confidential matters, but in a shared office, so it's almost 2nd nature to kit Win+L whenever I leave my machine...I even find myself doing it at home when I go and make a tea

Essencay - do you know who these people are? If not, you could rig up a simple program displaying a screen shot which will make a lot of noise as soon as anyone clicks on anything...it could be done in something as simple as PowerPoint and would catch most people. Of course, it would mean leaving the machine unsecured once to catch them, but you could create a special restricted user just for the purpose?

Thanks Sput...I think I'll stay with Win+L. Not in that kind of warzone Thanks for your help

http://www.winutility.com/qsd/ create a hot key or shortcut with -k switch and it will lock your 'puter

yrag - why would someone need that when locking your machine is built in to XP anyhow? If you wanted to shutdown and force things to quit without user interaction etc, then that tool would help, but what does it add in this case? Am I missing some problem with Win+L?