Start a program before showing desktop?

[rucanunes]

Hello,

 

I'm a teacher and I would like my students to fill this form before they can access the desktop:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Jd6zB8rGR7SmRYmT4PvmbVhjv4mD2si37CiGMY7Pm-A/viewform?c=0&w=1

 

How can I do this? And is it possible to continue to desktop after clicking "Submit"?

 

Regards!!!

[Tripredacus]

I don't know the answer exactly (maybe someone else has some ideas) but it may be possible to accomplish this by using a custom shell. Windows default shell is explorer.exe and this value can be changed in the registry to something else. Using a different shell would require someone to write the program that would:

1. Launch browser and go to that URL

2. After submitting form, close browser

3. Launch explorer.exe.

 

I think the difficult task would be to force the user to fill out the form or else they can't access Windows. I am not really a fan of this entire idea... Why not put that URL in a .lnk and put it in the Startup folder? Then the student will see it on logon and have to fill it out. Is the reason why you are going to this length of prohibiting the use of the PC because students are not otherwise filling out this survey? I know that students can be difficult, however it may be better to just have them fill out that form as part of that day's agenda.

[jaclaz]

And, if I may, there is nothing IMHO less useful as a "forced" form/poll.

 

I would (as well as say 35% to 75% of BOTH students and professors) fill the "altro" field with the first absurd profession that would cross my mind at the moment.

 

Like you know :

• flaming bowls juggler
• psychotropicist
• nuclear steam engine pilot
• etc.

making the data collected - to say the least - unreliable.

 

This said, something very similar has been solved recently on reboot.pro, here (only seemingly unrelated):

http://reboot.pro/topic/20001-minlogon-and-explorerexe/

where, besides the actually adopted solution, several possible alternatives were discussed. 

 

jaclaz

[MagicAndre1981]

change the Userinit value under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon to a cmd script which first opens the link and after closing run C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe.

 

But I haven't tried if this works.

[rucanunes]

These all are great ideas, thank you all. But I have a problem here:

 

When the cumputer starts, the IE shows before the Desktop (ok), but if the student leaves the computer and another student go to that same computer?

That second student will not have the IE window to fill....

 

This is for several PCs of a school library....

 

Tks!

[MagicAndre1981]

create a scheduled task to logoff the current user if the system is idle for several minutes.

[MrJinje]

Kiosk mode ?

[rucanunes]

MagicAndre1981: Could you please show me an example on how to do that?

MrJinje: But Kiosk mode ONLY lets students use web, right?

Thank you all!

[jaclaz]

Which OS is that?

This is for XP:

http://support2.microsoft.com/kb/314999/en-us

which being in the form of a screensaver it is easy to deploy/setup.

Here you will find some alternatives for Windows 7:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/d358382c-e91b-4e91-a1e8-04c53cfd91ce/automatic-logout-after-inactivityidle?forum=w7itprogeneral

 

including a "similar" screensaver:

http://www.grimadmin.com/staticpages/index.php/ss-operations

 

And, in any case for a public PC (like a library) most probably something *like* SteadyState, DeepFreeze or similar should be used, and these softwares may already have an in-built similar function. 

 

jaclaz