Windows 2000 password protection

Hi guys, recently my 9 yr old cousin is using my Pc and neglected his studys. so my mum ask me to password protected de pc so he can't access it, but then i've found out that he have been hacking to get the password thru some hacking programs thru some google search i tink.
can u guys recommend any way to tighten de security maybe any adjustment to de policy or any programs to prevent or any settings that can stop him from getting de pwl file. I'm using windows 2000 and my currently password is 8 character long and case sensitive ( izzit good enough???). can those passwork hacking programs really do their jobs and get de password out.. i'm really lost at wat to do... and also in de 1st place he can access my admin account cuz when i goes out i didn't off my Pc so he can use de Pc.

I assume you can't control physical access. That makes it more difficult. Try to keep him from opening the case, somehow since if he can get inside, he can remove BIOS passwords. Supposing you can do this and since you don't know what he's installed, I think I would password protect the BIOS to keep him from booting the computer (assuming it's turned off when not in use). Then I would start the computer with my admin account and immediately change the name and password for all accounts with admin privileges and either remove his account or severely restrict the account privileges. Then I would determine what tasks were active, looking especially for key loggers, etc. I would also carefully read up on the minimum necessary privileges for all the directories containing system files. On my secure systems, I have all user directories on a drive other than C with only admin and system having any significant access to C drive. Get the Microsoft Baseline Security Advisor and run it. It will have other suggestions.

All this is just a start. Others will suggest their favorites. Sounds like you have a real problem -- a somewhat knowledgable person with unsupervised physical access.

I know this is serious but you have to admit getting 0wn3d by a 9 year old is kinda funny. :)
Kids these days. lol

-Maestr0

Also, make sure he is set up as a normal user and not a power user. Power Users can do more to the machine than normal users. (such as install programs) You can check on this in Start - Settings - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Local Users and Groups. Some programs may need the admin rights to run, but you can use the "Run As" command to start those programs for him.

thanks a lot guys. :) i tink he hav given up to hack the password as i verbally warn him and i've also installed winguides tweak manager 2.1 which is such a good program to deny access to many security settings like control panel, regedit..but i still can't control him to use those hacking programs that doesn't require him to install at all...i've also set up a password in BIOS and disable drive A..
thanks again :D

In your bios, make sure the PC boots from HDD first. Then set a password for you bios.
This will keep him from booting up whatever he is using to reset your password.