Question

Blocking employees from deleting Internet Explorer history?!?

Asked by: drews77

Our goal is to prevent Employees from deleting Internet Explorers history.   From time to time the owners check to see where there employees are going to the internet.  Currently we have disabled the DELETE option from the GENERAL tab of the INTERNET PROPERTIES.   One employee was able to access and delete history by finding the Internet Explorer history folder on drive C:

Any ideas on protecting the history...  

We do have internet being served through a webproxy using WINGATE... We are currently only using it to block SPECIFIC websites.  

A solution could include using WINGATE or GPEDIT or CHANGING PREMISSION setting... plesae be specific with your answers and give details.  

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2008-04-29 at 14:45:33ID23363772
Tags

Microsoft XP Profressional

,

gpedit.msc

Topics

Web Browsers

,

Internet & Email Software

,

Windows XP Operating System

Participating Experts
3
Points
250
Comments
14

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Does a Demo to be shown to potential employers have to b…
    Thanks for your feedback. In other words, is it bad to use an existing game engine (and use prefabbed artwork and sound) and build on top of it to present to a potential employer? I am leaning more towards the softer side of the business along the production route but wondere...
  2. Listing employee's salary for their previous employer only
    This is probably more difficult to explain than it actually really is, so here goes. I have some tables that contain employment histories for staff (showing where they have worked, how much they got paid each time etc). I need to list all their previous jobs but only show t...
  3. Best PHP Employment Site for Employer?
    We are looking to hire a skilled PHP web developer in the USA or Canada and want to know which employment site would be best for us to post the ad and search resumes? There are so many sites out there and it is difficult to tell which ones are the most highly respected by pro...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: Dan7elPosted on 2008-04-29 at 15:00:21ID: 21466583

Are the users local admins on their systems or are they users with limited system access?

Are you using NTFS as a file system?

If they have limited local access and you're using NTFS, simply change the security permissions on the temp folder so they can't delete the files:

http://www.windowsitlibrary.com/Content/592/1.html

Also, it's possible you can move the temp directory to a location on a server.

 

by: KCTSPosted on 2008-04-29 at 15:11:16ID: 21466646

Why don't you just use the loggong/auditing features in WinGate - then you can track users regardless http://www.wingate.com/showfeature.php?cat=5&feat=14

 

by: drews77Posted on 2008-04-29 at 15:14:06ID: 21466661

The employees are setup as users with limited access.   Pc's are running NTFS on boot partition(C:) and FAT32 on recovery partition(H:).

Interesting... I guessing there is an preference menu to change location?

 

by: drews77Posted on 2008-04-29 at 15:29:41ID: 21466751

KCTS:  The owners dont logon to the server so if we setup a log it would have to be easy to understand and in general, just show the URL.  I know logs such as Apache log list every file downloaded.  

 

by: KCTSPosted on 2008-04-29 at 15:40:18ID: 21466834

The idea pf a proxy server is that they access the internet through it. (you can set this by group policy). The proxy server then controls which web sites they can and can't access ans optionally logs which sites they are visting. Wingate has the capacity to do this - it is completly transparent to the users.

 

by: KCTSPosted on 2008-04-29 at 15:42:50ID: 21466863

Other alternative procy servers are
acFreeProxy - http://sourceforge.net/projects/acfreeproxy/
Squid - http://www.acmeconsulting.it/SquidNT/

 

by: drews77Posted on 2008-04-29 at 22:58:09ID: 21468367

Apparently IE History is stored in c:\documents and settings\%username%\Local Settings\History      However I cant access the permissions....   We are using IE 7.0.  Any more suggestions on changing permission.

 

by: KCTSPosted on 2008-04-29 at 23:20:36ID: 21468450

You are going about this the wrong way !
You need to make sure that they access the internent through a proxy servry - that is the only way you are going to be able to centrally log who goes where and restrict which sites they can and cant visit

 

by: DerekSchaulandPosted on 2008-04-30 at 08:34:42ID: 21471678

For simply preventing history deletion on a users PC you could configure a GPO to prevent deletion and even to move the history folder to a central location.

To prevent users from deleting history using a GPO try the following:

Create a GPO for users that prevents the changing of history settings, this will dim the settings in Internet Options:

In the GPO Editor find the following
User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Internet Explorer

configure the Disable changing history settings object to enabled

This will prevent any users who have this GPO applied from being able to delete/clear their history in Internet Explorer.

Hope this helps
Derek

 

by: drews77Posted on 2008-04-30 at 09:27:57ID: 21472251

My problem is that we have a smart employee who we believe finds the storage location.  What keeps him from finding the location on the network and deleting pages.  When I restrict to read and modify (as opposed to full control) IE rejects the change.

 

by: KCTSPosted on 2008-04-30 at 09:47:23ID: 21472415

IE needs to write and delete cookies - so you cant stop deletions - YOU NEED TO USE A PROXY SERVER !!!
The proxys will log the history on the server wehre the user can't get at it.
You already have WINGATE - so why not use it ?

 

by: DerekSchaulandPosted on 2008-04-30 at 09:53:57ID: 21472461

You can also move the history file to another location that perhaps the users cannot clear (maybe that has readonly)

 

by: drews77Posted on 2008-04-30 at 10:05:02ID: 21472577

IE requires write premission (appartenly)... I like the idea of the owners opening the shared folder on the server and seeing the URL of the HOME PAGE.  

KCTS:  You are absolutely correct & that's a great backup for us, however they are more difficult to read through as they give too much information... But I will look into it.

 

by: drews77Posted on 2008-04-30 at 11:22:17ID: 21473289

When I changed the directory location it only moved the Temp Int files... not the History folder...

Why would GPEDIT block the delete button but not protect the History location (besides making it invisiable).   Oh well.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...