response 1 of 16:

Jan 5 22:39 UTC 2001

I have Windows 98.  I detest the Windows 95+ "desktop icon / Start menu"
interface.  I still like and use Program Manager (progman.exe), even on my
Win2K PC at work.  On my Win98 machine I have more than one profile.  I would
like each profile to have a different "view" for progman.  But it seems that
it will only honor the progman.ini file in the \windows directory.  I tried
a variety of things, to no avail.  I was not able to find any documentation
on if & how it's possible to use progman with different "views".  I may be
reduced to trying to hack a separate instance of the progman.exe file with
a filename different than progman.ini

Does anyone have any ideas about if & how I could do what I'm trying to do?

response 3 of 16:

Jan 6 14:47 UTC 2001

Yes, on rethinking things more clearly, you're right, it's possible to do
that, since starting with Win95, running a Windows program from a command
shell allowed it to start up independently from the shell, instead of the
shell displaying the dreaded "this program requires MS windows" message.
The only thing to ensure is that with an exit statement the batch file will
exit automatically without requiring a manual window close.

response 5 of 16:

Jan 6 15:17 UTC 2001

Well, if you always start from a batch file then you can have that batch file
set a variable or a file so that a later run of the batch file can check it.

response 7 of 16:

Jan 21 19:31 UTC 2001

Here's the scenario.  A friend of mine has a small business with a
couple employees.  They have a PC running Win98 for various office
work.  They have an Internet account, but it's only occasionally used --
in fact, my friend doesn't want employees wasting time using it, so only
she knows the password.

The problem is some employees are taking advantage of the fact that the
machine has a modem, and dialing into their *own* internet accounts with
it.  Not only is this a productivity problem, it ties up the business'
only phone line.

Here's the question.  Is it possible, in Win98, to restrict access to
Dial Up Networking to only one user?  My friend is asking me for help,
and I'm not sure how to go about it.

response 9 of 16:

Jan 22 02:18 UTC 2001

The problem is she's not always around to observe what's going on, so
adding a light won't really help.  There's really only one culprit, but
she'd like a situation that doesn't involve firing him.

It seems to me this is a fairly basic security item that Windows ought
to be able to do without much fuss, but I can't figure out how I'd
accomplish it.

response 11 of 16:

Jan 22 19:42 UTC 2001

I think she has discussed it with him.  I think she's just looking for a way
to limit the temptation, to help make sure it won't come up again.  We're
talking about a high-school-age employee here, his brain hasn't fully
developed. ;>

Didn't think of changing the hardware profiles; I wasn't aware those could
be done by account.  I'll look into that.  I was also considering setting up
different user profiles, one of which had none of the Internet software in
the Start menu.

response 13 of 16:

Jan 23 01:40 UTC 2001

Hey, maybe a batch file to hide/unhide some critical .dll for the dial-up
networking?  All you'd have to do is move or rename it, and make the batch
file(s) obscure enough.

response 15 of 16:

Jan 23 13:58 UTC 2001

Make sure it's not critical for anything else that's *supposed* to be running,
though.