New Star Software Collection/NSS_Collection.iso/3-191 win zip 50p/1.ima/WINGUA.ZIP/EDUCATOR.TXT

Text File | 1994-02-15 | 12.2 KB | 245 lines

WELCOME TO WINGUARD (V.2) !!!

Hello!  My name is Frederick Wasti, and I am directing this note
toward other educators, people who should benefit greatly from
the use of WinGuard.  First, let me say "Thank-You!" for trying
out WinGuard.  I do believe you will find that WinGuard offers
the protections needed to allow your students to safely use the
Windows interface, without easily damaging Windows or the files
accessible through it.

In this note I will try to provide a description of WinGuard's
usefulness in the school environment, some suggestions and
examples for configuring WinGuard to protect your school's
Windows computers, and an explanation of the legal and ethical
considerations for evaluating the shareware version of WinGuard.

THE NEED FOR WINGUARD IN THE SCHOOL

The use by schools of personal computers equipped with Windows
is on a dramatic increase, and the ease of use that Windows
offers makes certain that this trend will continue.  However,
students will tend to view the Windows environment as a
"playground" to explore, and occasional damage (usually, but not
always, accidental) is likely to occur (unless security
provisions, such as the use of WinGuard, are employed to reduce
this likelihood).

As a teacher, myself, I know how easy it is for students to
wreak havoc on a Windows PC;  yet the Windows interface is so
ideal for classroom and computer lab use that teachers would not
want to keep students away from it.  This dilemma may be solved
by the use of WinGuard, which allows student access to only the
functions and applications that the teacher may wish, shielding
the more "sensitive" features and programs away from young minds
and fingers.

If you are in charge of one or more Windows PCs at your school,
you probably have already had to deal with some "breakdowns"
caused by students.  Whether accidental or intentional, such
events can lock out computers from further use until someone
with enough time and expertise can get them back on line.
Furthermore, some of these problems may be very time-consuming
and/or difficult to repair, especially if the person who tries
to fix them is not already a Windows "guru".  Wouldn't it be
better to be able to prevent many such disasters by using
WinGuard?  This would seem to me to be an obvious case of an
ounce of prevention being preferable to a pound of cure.

SUGGESTIONS FOR USING WINGUARD IN THE SCHOOL

As I see it, WinGuard offers three main areas of password-
secured protection, as follows:

l.  WinGuard provides for the automatic setting of seven
increasingly restrictive protection levels (eight, actually,
including a "zero protection" setting).  These safeguards run
from merely preventing students from making spatial changes, to
keeping them from accessing virtually all Program Manager file
functions.

At Carver High School, where I teach (biology), we originally
tried using Protection Level 4 on all the computers in our
computer lab, then increased the protection to Level 5 for a
while, and now have the machines configured for Level 6.  (You
will have to experiment, and then decide which protection level
best fits your particular school situation.)  As an example of
what WinGuard can do, under Level 6 our computers have the
following safeguards in place:

The Save Settings on Exit command in the Program Manager Options
Menu is inactivated (appearing "dimmed" or "grayed out"), which
prevents students from being permanently rearranging the
desktop.  Therefore, anytime that Windows is started, Program
Manager will come up with the original desktop layout intact.

At Level 6, our computers are also protected from students
either deleting, modifying, or creating Program Manager groups
or items (icons);  if a student were to try to use any of the
File Menu's New, Move, Copy, or Delete commands, he/she would
find that all of these potentially destructive commands (and, in
fact, the entire Properties dialog box) would be inactivated.
Finally, our students are not be able to start any program not
already present as an icon, since the Run command in the File
Menu is disabled, as well.

2.  WinGuard will also allow you to hide one or more of the
Program Manager program groups (such as Main, Accessories,
Applications, etc.), preventing students from accessing (or
perhaps even knowing about) such groups.  This is, perhaps, the
most useful new function provided by Version 2 of WinGuard.

If you wish merely to hide a few selected icons that are present
in several different groups, it might be advantageous to create
a Program Manager group just for them, and then to move each of
them to your new group (by dragging and dropping with the mouse)
before hiding the group with WinGuard.  Here at C.H.S., we have
dragged several icons (such as File Manager and Windows Setup)
to a new group (which our computer teacher named "MyStuff"), and
then hid that group and its icons using WinGuard.

If you elected to have a WinGuard group created for you during
installation, you may use that group for the one to hide (after
copying or moving WinGuard's own icon to another group, of
course, in order that you may still be able to easily access
WinGuard after the WinGuard group has been hidden).  You should
find that icons for File Manager, System Editor, Windows Setup,
and Control Panel are already installed in the WinGuard group,
so you could delete any of these icons from other groups, if
you wanted (although you might wish to check out the special
Control Panel features that Winguard offers, further below).

By the way, if you are not yet familiar with drag-and-drop
procedures, you might wish to know that you may copy or move
Program Manager icons from one program group to another by using
just the mouse.  For example, if you point at an icon, and then
click on it with the left mouse button, you may drag it (by
continuing to hold the button down) to another group, and then
drop it there (by releasing the button), in order to move it.
If you hold down the Ctrl key while performing the above
procedure, you will copy the icon, instead of moving it.

3.  WinGuard will even let you hide one or more of the icons in
the Control Panel window, preventing students from accessing the
Program Manager settings for such features as colors, drivers,
fonts, printers, virtual memory, and desktop details (such as
wallpaper or screen savers), even if you have not hidden Control
Panel's own Program Manager icon.  (In order that YOU would
still have access to any Control Panel icon that is hidden,
WinGuard's Control Panel Icons Window provides command buttons
for all of the regular Control Panel functions.)

OBTAINING HELP WHILE USING WINGUARD

WinGuard provides several ways to obtain help, including (but
not limited to) this file.  (I think you will find that WinGuard
provides more ways of obtaining help than do most other Windows
utilities.)

If you click with the right mouse button on any Main Window
command button, you will find that you may obtain context-
sensitive help from WinGuard's main help file, without having to
go to the help contents first to find the topic.  You may also
receive help for a specific WinGuard control by pressing the F1
key while that feature has the focus, or you may simply use the
Help Menu in any of the WinGuard windows.

You will find, as you use WinGuard's Main Window, that the text
message in the Status Bar at the bottom of the window changes as
you move the mouse (or change the focus with the Tab key).  The
Status Bar will show the current protection level at start-up
(regardless of where the cursor is or where the focus is), and
at any time the mouse is moved over the Main Window's
background.  Otherwise, the Status Bar will provide a short
message relating to the command button that the mouse cursor is
over (or to which the Tab key moves the focus).

If you ever have any question about any aspect of WinGuard,
please feel free to contact me (Frederick Wasti, c/o Cetus
Software, PO Box 700, Carver, MA 02330), and I will be glad to
provide any help you might need.

SHAREWARE EVALUATION OF WINGUARD

To see how WinGuard works, I encourage you to try out WinGuard
on one of your Windows PCs.  Under the terms of WinGuard's
shareware evaluation, you may install and thoroughly test
WinGuard on ONE computer for a period of 30 days (at which time
you MUST either obtain a registered license to continue using
it, OR you must uninstall it completely).

Please note that it is NOT legal NOR is it ethical to install
the shareware version of WinGuard on MORE than ONE computer, NOR
may it be legally or ethically used for long-term protection
(greater than the 30-day evaluation period).  If you decide to
continue using WinGuard on your own computer, or if you wish to
install the program on other computers at your school, you MUST
register your use of the program;  then you may permanently use
the registered version on your own computer (if you obtained an
Individual License), or on all the computers in your school (if
a Site License were purchased).

The shareware version of WinGuard is being distributed on a
trial basis, strictly for evaluation purposes, but it IS a fully
functional program (that is, it is not "crippled" in any way),
so that you may fairly judge it thoroughly.  If you do register
your use of WinGuard, you will receive on disk a copy of the
latest version of it, without any of the (not too subtle)
"reminder screens".

A single-user Individual License for WinGuard may be obtained
for $14.95.  A Site License for the use of WinGuard on ANY
number of computers at ONE specific school location (but NOT for
an entire school system) may be obtained for $74.95.  An
individual who has registered a previous version of WinGuard may
upgrade to Version 2.0 for $9.95;  an institution that has
registered an earlier version may upgrade for $49.95 (for each
site).  Note that each of the above prices include shipping and
handling costs.  Payment may be made by check or money order,
but school purchase orders are also welcome (and I DO know that
many schools will have to register this way).

You may obtain a registration form for viewing or printing by
opening regform.txt (which is just a registration form), or
either winguard.txt or winguard.wri (both of which contain
registration forms).  You may also simply print out a
registration form directly from WinGuard's help file while
running WinGuard (by clicking on the Registration Form item in
the Help Menu of WinGuard's Main Window).  Or, you may simply
provide ALL of the registration information in a separate letter
or purchase order.

An Individual License entitles ONE individually registered user
to install and use WinGuard on any computer(s) that he/she
PERSONALLY owns, either at home or at school, but he/she may NOT
allow his/her registered copy to be installed or used on ANY
other computer(s), whether belonging to another individual or to
a school.

A Site License entitles ONE individual school building to
install and use WinGuard on ANY number of computers belonging to
that school at that specific school location.  A school system
that intends to install and use WinGuard in more than one school
MUST obtain a SEPARATE site license for EACH school.  Any copy
of WinGuard registered to a particular school may NOT be
distributed beyond the boundaries of that school.

However, any person is permitted (and, in fact, ENCOURAGED) to
distribute the UNregistered, shareware version of WinGuard to
other individuals, as long as ALL of its files are distributed
together.  For further information on WinGuard registration, or
to obtain on disk a copy of the shareware version of WinGuard
for distribution and evaluation, please feel free to contact me
at Cetus Software (PO Box 700, Carver, MA 02330).

IN CONCLUSION

I hope that you will give the shareware version of WinGuard a
thorough test on one of your school computers, and that you will
then find it to be useful.  As a teacher, I know that it IS a
useful educational tool, and so I look forward to hearing from
you.  If you have any questions, please drop me a note
(Frederick Wasti, c/o Cetus Software, PO Box 700, Carver, MA
02330 USA).

THANK-YOU FOR TRYING OUT WINGUARD !!!