Windows 7 Kiosk

Windows 7 Kiosk is a comprehensive and reliable software solution that was developed to assist you in protecting publicly-available computers from being used for restricted actions by end-users.

Appearance-wise, the program is fairly simple to understand and work with, but some previous IT experience will be necessary to properly configure it.

Nonetheless, it provides a helpful text file along with a video, on its homepage, to carefully guide you through the required steps, so as to spare you from wasting time in trying to figure it out. In this file, you can also find the user and admin passwords, that will enable you to pause protection for an hour; this duration, however, is not customizable.

The first time you run Windows 7 Kiosk, you will be prompted by a message to read the provided documentation, which will need to be done in order to begin working with it, as otherwise this dialog will keep popping up every time you wish to protect the host machine.

The main window of the application enables you to manually select the functions and tools you wish to deactivate, for instance File Explorer, Task Manager, keyboard functions, Internet Explorer or Firefox, as well as a list of processes you can specify in the blacklist.txt file, in the utility’s running directory.

Similarly, you can disable right-click mouse actions, shortcut buttons or force run a specific process. Moreover, you can even set a timer for activating and deactivating the protection on the computer. Once you hit the ‘Protect’ button, all restrictions will be applied, so whenever someone tries to do something they are not allowed, it will inform them that their action is illegal.

Windows 7 Kiosk can be called out by pressing the ‘Pause Break’ keyboard button twice, then inputting either the admin or the user password. It gives you a one-hour window to perform any configuration changes you need, before disappearing again. Should you wish to disable it altogether, you can press on ‘Quit’.

Overall, Windows 7 Kiosk proves to be a useful and efficient application that can help you manage what end-users can or cannot do on the public PCs you put at their disposal, thus increasing the machines’ security and stability, with little effort on your part.