On RDS server can word/excel docs be made read only
Both Office and Plant users connect to a Citrix 4.5 / Windows 2003 RDS server. The plant users receive word or excel in email attachments. We do not want the plant users to be able to modify the attachments sent to them.
Office 2003 is installed on the RDS server. How can we make plant user attachments read only, while allowing office users to modify their attachments?
We have thought of making the plant user's desktop read only, but the plant users would still be able to open the attachment, make changes and then print the changes. Read only desktop would only prevent saving the change document.
We thought about installing the word/excel viewer, but could not figure out how to associate the viewer with plant employees and associates the office programs with the office users.
Office 2003 is installed on the RDS server. How can we make plant user attachments read only, while allowing office users to modify their attachments?
We have thought of making the plant user's desktop read only, but the plant users would still be able to open the attachment, make changes and then print the changes. Read only desktop would only prevent saving the change document.
We thought about installing the word/excel viewer, but could not figure out how to associate the viewer with plant employees and associates the office programs with the office users.
Who is Participating?
Office will tend to override the associations with viewers.. if you set the extensions, Office will "repair" itself and correct the association.
The best way to do this is to create separate servers for the differing groups. You'll want to have your viewers on one group and full office on the other servers. Since your users are likely using Outlook, you will publish 2 copies of outlook, one for the users with the viewers, and once for the users with full office. The reasoning is to make sure that you don't have users who need the full version accidentally hitting a server that only has viewers.
Coralon
The best way to do this is to create separate servers for the differing groups. You'll want to have your viewers on one group and full office on the other servers. Since your users are likely using Outlook, you will publish 2 copies of outlook, one for the users with the viewers, and once for the users with full office. The reasoning is to make sure that you don't have users who need the full version accidentally hitting a server that only has viewers.
Coralon
Not sure if it is possible for you or not.. but why not save attachments for plant viewers as a PDF? So save the pdf and send it to those you dont want making any changes..
Found this article http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2004/04/20/creating-custom-file-associations-to-support-side-by-side-applications.aspx based on what dkotte had to say. It tied right in with his suggestion.
In a GPO we built a preference to assign the user level extension association.
Then targeted the preference to an Ad security group with all the plant users in it.
This took care of forcing the user to use viewers.
Then we assigned to the plant user security group deny permissions to winword.exe and excel.exe. This took care of them trying to run Word or Excel.
About sending pdf instead of word/excel docs. It was considered but then rejected because it would have been more complicated to implement then the GPO solution.
Thanks all.
In a GPO we built a preference to assign the user level extension association.
Then targeted the preference to an Ad security group with all the plant users in it.
This took care of forcing the user to use viewers.
Then we assigned to the plant user security group deny permissions to winword.exe and excel.exe. This took care of them trying to run Word or Excel.
About sending pdf instead of word/excel docs. It was considered but then rejected because it would have been more complicated to implement then the GPO solution.
Thanks all.
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with GroupPolicy Preferences (and GPP-Extensions at 2003) this association can be done within the GPO's also.