if desktops are not locked-down there can be no
control and there always are a lot of issues. Yet it is possible to lock down systems and still make it work. One of our customers locked down their desktops with Windows NT in 1996. The result: they reduced desktop-related help desk calls by 800 percent! If it was possible for them to lock down the desktop with an archaic operating system like
Windows NT, then it is possible for everyone else to do it with either Windows XP or Windows Vista, both of which have massive built-in improvements for just this issue. Yet admin- istrators still today don't bother even trying because it is just too much work. Users have become used to controlling every- thing on their desktop and they just won't give up this free- dom since they now consider it an acquired right.
The problem has always stemmed from the very name we use for desktops: personal computers (PC). Instead of person- al computer, organizations should make a point of calling their systems professional computers. Using the term PC in its original sense gives every user the impression that the computer is theirs in the first place. Well, that is not the case. The computer, like the desk it sits on, belongs to the organiza- tion, not the individual and because of this, it should be locked down and controlled centrally. The key to such a project is the proper negotiation of who owns what on the PC. Where do the user's rights begin and where do they end? What belongs to the corporation and what belongs to IT? Defining each of these property zones on the PC and making them very clear through massive communications with the user makes a locked-down project work.