GPO to block certain file types

[JoeyF]

At the school I work for, we have a bit of a problem with students playing flash games. Students spend a lot of time playing games in the computer labs, and not enough time listening to the teachers. A number of teachers have asked us to take care of this, so we started blocking a large number of game sites. Now students are saving flash games either to their redirected folders on the file server, or just bringing them from home on their flash drives.

I'm wondering if there is any way (preferably through group policy) we can prevent certain file types from being opened? We can't simply disable flash drives, because they need them to transfer assignments between school and home.

[sc302 Veteran]

comp config\windows settings\security settings\software restriction policies

[Master1]

aww cmon u guys let the kids play the games :laugh:

[Unique Touch]

  sc302 said:

comp config\windows settings\security settings\software restriction policies

you'll need the actual flash files you want to block when setting this in policy as it records the hash for that file - this prevents the file being accessed even if students rename the file to try and get round the GPO.

you might want to scan their redirected folders for the files you want to block and then dump them somewhere central to import into the policy.

[Joel]

Uninstall Flash from the machines. ;)

[WatchTheSoup]

  Joel said:

Uninstall Flash from the machines. ;)

but then they might block educational content, a lot of teachers like to show youtube videos to supplement their lessons

blocking the SWF extension from opening may help, but remember that this GPO is easy to work around

[bmdixon]

What are your servers running? Can you install "File Server Resource Manager"? You should be able to stop them saving flash files to their areas using that.

That would solve the home areas problem, for their flash drives can you not stop them running anything a drive other than c:? Not sure exactly how to do that but i think its possible...

[spikey_richie]

Burn their highscore into their forehead? Name and shame policy to deter others :)

[Joel]

  WatchTheSoup said:

but then they might block educational content, a lot of teachers like to show youtube videos to supplement their lessons

Really? I bet IT admins love that hit on their bandwidth. 35 students all hitting Youtube at the same time (and that's just in 1 class). Much better to download the video to a compatible format and run it locally (the teacher should do this, not the student).