stopping users from moving tiles

Hi,I have 30 Acer W510 tablets to use with the children in my school,Ii need to lock the tiles on the student account. I have looked through the GPO and cannot find anything as yet, if i dont lock them the children will move and remove tiles.
please help

Hello!

Unfortunately this can't be done. The Start Screen, if you think of it this way, is much like the Desktop with icons. I would imagine small children might end up moving tiles around, but honestly, I've found that if you don't tell the person HOW to do that, very good chances are that said thing won't happen. Will the tablets be used with the children primarily? No other users?

If you have to, I think you can use a third party program to do that. I can't think of the name, but it basically prevents any changes in Windows from being saved to the registry hive. At every restart, it goes back to the default image that an administrator can only change.

Coke Robot said:

Unfortunately this can't be done. The Start Screen, if you think of it this way, is much like the Desktop with icons. I would imagine small children might end up moving tiles around, but honestly, I've found that if you don't tell the person HOW to do that, very good chances are that said thing won't happen. Will the tablets be used with the children primarily? No other users?

Click to expand...

Isn't the whole point of Windows 8 that a child can use it? So it works! Oops!

Mind you, can't you just set up a user account for the kids and let them destroy things without affecting other user accounts?

does someone have a definitive answer to this? it's an intriguing question. If it's not an administrative account, can they rearrange the tiles? i guess the best way is to first create an account that doesn't have privileges and see what happens.

I guess since all these machines are the same, you could create a universal disk image and when the child is done with the machine, you use the image to wipe the machine in preparation for the next kid.

dirtyvu said:

does someone have a definitive answer to this? it's an intriguing question. If it's not an administrative account, can they rearrange the tiles? i guess the best way is to first create an account that doesn't have privileges and see what happens.

I guess since all these machines are the same, you could create a universal disk image and when the child is done with the machine, you use the image to wipe the machine in preparation for the next kid.

Click to expand...

No, this simply can't happen. It's literally just like moving around icons around on the Desktop or moving windows around, that's not something that can be disabled. It doesn't matter if it's a standard account or an admin account or a guest account or a standard account with UAC controls.

There are some programs out there like DeepFreeze that basically perform a quick system restore to a default image at every restart, so any tile changes on the Start Screen get wiped out and go back to how they originally were.

http://www.faronics.com/press-releases/article/faronics-to-release-deep-freeze-for-windows-8-2/

I am going to try an answer this.

The pointers to these icons are held in the registry actually
However, there is a folder that can only be accessed by a shortcut...

%windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{4234d49b-0245-4df3-b780-3893943456e1}

Create a new shortcut on your desktop with that as the path.
Then change to details view
Then hold left click on the scroll bar and you will see part of the path....

The actual path is...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Extensions\Contractld\Windows.Protocol\Packageld

They appear to be classified as URL's to a lot of the Default Apps. Not all are though
However,

The apps are actually held in

C:\Program Files\WindowsApps
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository
C:\Users\??????\AppData\Local\Packages

DO NOT TAKE OWNERSHIP of that location, you will hose your system and have to reload, no a refresh will not fix it.
You can fix the apps by uninstalling and reinstalling them, but there are other issues that it causes. so, my advice, don't do it.

I found this info and it might help in understanding a bit more... WinRT/Metro Style App Data | One Dev Job

Application Manifests and a database of installed applications

%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository
e.g.
c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository\89006A2E.SketchBookExpress_1.0.0.2013_x64__tf1gferkr813w.xml
Application code and content/resource files

%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps
e.g.
c:\Program Files\WindowsApps\89006A2E.SketchBookExpress_1.0.0.2013_x64__tf1gferkr813w\SketchBook.exe
c:\Program Files\WindowsApps\89006A2E.SketchBookExpress_1.0.0.2013_x64__tf1gferkr813w\AboutPage.xaml
Application settings and data storage (settings, saved documents, web cache, temporary data storage)

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages
e.g.
c:\Users\Filip\AppData\Local\Packages\89006A2E.SketchBookExpress_tf1gferkr813w\Settings\settings.dat
c:\Users\Filip\AppData\Local\Packages\89006A2E.SketchBookExpress_tf1gferkr813w\LocalState\SketchBook.tiff
c:\Users\Filip\AppData\Local\Packages\WinStore_cw5n1h2txyewy\AC\INetCookies\IY2KIDUJ.txt
c:\Users\Filip\AppData\Local\Packages\WinStore_cw5n1h2txyewy\AC\INetCacheY7EQF5Z\Frame[1].htm

Click to expand...

I have not tried setting permissions on the Registry Keys (haven't needed to) to see if that can stop someone from at least uninstalling anything. Maybe?

However, I do not have time now, but what Coke Robot suggested is a good one.
DeepFreeze is one that I have looked at a long time ago

I hope some of this helps with why you can't lockdown these settings.
I am still hunting for some lockdown settings for Win8, it can be useful.

I doubt there are lockdown settings in Windows 8. There aren't any to prevent Desktop icons from being moved around, so I wouldn't see why that would be there for the Start Screen.

Well, there are ways to do this to desktop icons in XP and I think 7.
I can't see why they would have been removed. I will have to look around.
However, this is more in the realm of permissions than actual GPO's etc.

hello, thank you for the quick response's.
As dirtyvu said this is an intriguing question, and very late last night I found that it can be achieved, going through the GPO's I found one called "Remove drag and drop and context menus on start menu" enabling this has locked the tiles to the position I put them in! However, I have made a snap-in for the "student" user, so far I have prevented their access to the "change pc settings" and it has worked only for the "student" user but this has stopped the "admin" user from being able to move the ties also, this isn't a big problem but I will look into it. The "drag and drop" GPO says to also look at GPO's "prevent changes to taskbar and start menu settings" and "remove access to the context menu for task bar settings" I'm sure I have tried both of these and they didn't do anything but I will double check and report back.

Thanks for the response coke robot, I'm not sure if you have used win 8 with a touch screen but it is very easy to move the tiles, a little too easy, left and right is not a problem but if you move your hand up or down the tile moves with it in most cases. this is think should be addressed by Microsoft as I think it is an issue, not just for the fact I want to lock out the students but as a user on a touch screen it is going to become annoying, accidentally moving the tiles around. also if children realise they can cause havoc by moving and deleting tiles, then havoc they will cause!!

As you know the kids are smarter than the teachers. If you don't believe me just ask them .

Jeff Foxworthy proved that on his program: "Are you smarter than a 5th grader".

My advice to you is to make ALL of the recommended discs for Win 8 post haste. You'll be using them with that little gang of Indians ! Sure you know all of Murphy's laws.

When things get bad you can use system reset. You'll need to establish some reset dates. That should roll all back to previous originality.


I'm chuckling thinking of you pulling your hair out ! . Good luck !

You may want to put into your lessons how to undo the mess they made !!!

They can definitely show the teachers a thing or 2!
I'm going to make all the recovery disks needed, however I am going to be creating one definitive tablet, with all the correct settings and software on and then making an image of that tablet and I'll clone all the other tablets to that image, at least that's the plan!
if all goes wrong on one I can just refer to that image and it will be ready to use again in as short amount of time possible!

We already have a good amount of iPads for use with the children so I know how destructive they can be! hopefully ill lock these down enough before they get their hands on them!

Here is something you may find useful...

Download Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows and Windows Server from Official Microsoft Download Center

To get individual Group Policies for only specific users and groups, or machine specific, you will have to join them to a domain and setup Active Directory.

The Local Group Policies (gpedit.msc) is global (affects everything and everyone) only to that PC for which it is run on.

I have not played with Group Policies in a long time.