I've already have an understanding of the problems and issues related to installing a flash drive on a public computer system. The problem that keeps coming up is which flash drives will work and which will not. We have 36 public computers running mainly XP, a few running Windows 2000, and shorting a few being replaced with Vista.
The issue: The local user can't be an administator because it would allow the user to alter the local computer time which would be really back for our time management software not to mention our software that protects the hard disk disables if the local user is an administator. I would also just think it a bad idea to let any non-trusted public user be an administator. With all that said, not being an administrator means that you can't install new hardware as it requires being an administator.
How do we determine which flash drives will and won't work. Currently it's hit and miss and mostly miss. I've not seen any information about determining which usb driver is installed by default, how to determine what drivers a particular flash drive uses or any way to install all the available flash drive drivers and Windows is able to use.
What would be useful for me is to understand this part of the process. If I plug in a flash drive the computer will prompt me for the administrator's password. If I enter it then the flash drive installs. It appears to me that it may be pulling drivers from somewhere within Windows. Is it possible to have all the available USB flash drive drivers installed to allow the most flash drives to work without having to prompt for administative permission? Is there a list anywhere describing which drives might have more chance of working without having administative permission?
Thanks for any input on this topic. Its been a sore spot in my side for quite some time and I don't see it going away unless someone can help me.
Start Free Trial
