How can you stop office staff from playing games

Some computers at work are used and they are not connected to the Internet.

How can they all be disabled from playing games?

None have joysticks and the games are mouse based. E.G (Golf-Fishing-Wargames)
Some of the staff have hidden games inside windows folders so they are not found,Making it hard to look for all games and delete them.


Anyone have any ideas??

http://www.donkboy.com/html/vol6.htm has some registry hacks you can try, like blocking access to the DOS prompt. There are also lot of external programs that limit the windows usage, just search the forums/google.

I'd go for the ports..

do the computers connect to the internet directly or via a residential gateway??
if so. you could block the ports used by those games..

or just allow mail and http ports :)

I don't know how your network is set up at work but a couple of things you could do are

1. If you can't find the games they are executing, rebuild the workstations and lock your network down so that they don't have rights to download/install software. It's dangerous to let ordinary user have the ability to do this anyway.

and 2. Like Zero said scan the registry and get rid of things that aren't supposed to be there.

Hope this helps.

Need some more info on your network. If its win2k w/ AD, then you could try implemting group policy to restrict them from running games, and to lock down their desktop if need be. They will only be allowed to access work related files.

Or....if you have no moral problems with it...lie. Tell them you're monitoring them. Tell them that tools are in place to sniff out these abusers, and they will be prosecuted to the furthest extent of the law!!! :D

Or actually monitor them. Their are some programs, like Track-It, which can audit your networks hardware and software, along with tons of other features -- license tracking, help desk dockets, remote access. Do an audit, see what software is loaded, and nail the offenders.

If that doesn't work, use policies to prevent installation or introduction of files or folders onto the machine. And since they have no net access, you don't have to worry about net games.

I would like to note that if they are only playing during lunch or during breaks, I personally wouldn't care. It's a good destresser, and if it's ok with the heads, let 'em play. If it blends into their productivity, nip it in the bud. We used to play UT during lunch -- nothing gets rid of stress better than fragging you opponent. But we only played during our lunch hour, no more.

You could use something like NT/Win2k/XP, make yourself the administrator and them a normal user, and then through the use of security policies deny them access/rights to install/modify software. I recommend searching Microsoft's database for specifics to your environment/needs. Here are a couple of quicky things I found for Win2k that might give you a head start:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q323525

If they are actually logging into a domain, then your job is easier, you can enforce it there; however, if they are not, you can still do it, it will just take some work. I suggest you look into group policies and file permissions, these should allow you to do it.

Neb