Auto start encrypted program in Limited acct

Hi all,

I have Windows XP professional. The computer has one purpose: to autologin and run a program at startup, and program cannot be copied by the user (I believe it should be encrypted). Also the program references files in the same folder and reads/writes to them. How can I do this?

I have looked into adding a shortcut to the "Startup" menu for a limited user, then using TWeakUI to enable autologin, but the program doesn't startup when I do this, apparently since the program is located in the Owner (administrator priveledge) account.

I then tried to encrypt the folder and autologin the the Owner account but it still seems like program can be copied as long as I'm in this account (even though it's encrypted).

Putting the encrypted folder in the "shared" documents doesn't work either when I long in as an Limited User, I can't open the file (it's encrypted).

Any help much appreciated...

Thanks,

Mike

P.S. Bonus if you can tell me how would one do this on Windows XP home edition as well.

 

Thanks TonyT. Changing the permissions of the folder where the program is located and adding the program to the "scheduled tasks" for the Limitied user worked, however the Limited user can still access the folder where the program is located (if they knew where to look), so this only solves half of my problem. I've found that the permissions need to be read AND write since my home-grown program, which I've converted to a Windows executable, writes to a history file while the program is running.

I did a little more digging, I found out that there are utilities called SRVANY and INSTSRV that can turn a executable into a service that is called by the system. Then the service can be called at login and I'm hoping it will run the program and deny the Limited User access to the Admin folder. I followed the examples on the internet (from Microsoft) but they didn't work for me the way I was anticipating. I believe I will try this route unless someone has any advice on how to do this more easily. I'm thinking I will start a new post to detail this new challenge.

 

Thanks Tony...

 

Using the advice you gave me on setting a group policy, it worked, except I can still navigate to the folder by typing in the address, then I can right click in the folder and unhide using the "properties" option...