Disable "Adjust Date/Time" in Vista Home Edition

Question

My company has got quite a number of client laptops out in the field. These laptops are running Windows Vista Home edition.

I was recently asked if I could find a way to disable the user's ability to adjust the system time.

• My first thought was to use gpedit, but as I found this is unavailable in home edition.

• I then looked for registry edits that I could use, but I drew a blank. Apparently the user rights related bits of gpedit do not involve registry settings.

We adjust the system time automatically from our software that runs on the laptop. This means that we need a way to be able to disable the user's ability to adjust the date/time, but allow our program (running under that user's context) to adjust it for them.

Has anybody got any ideas, or know a way of getting gpedit to work on home edition?

(Our software is .Net based and has automatic update features, so we can leverage that in the solution if needed).

Update:

Local Security Settings aren't available in Vista Home edition either.

Answer 1

The short answer? Don't try to get away with consumer products in a business environment (I know, probably not your fault).

You might be able to alter the local security policies, but you would have to do it while logged in as a local admin, and that means either doing it one by one in person, or by allowing the user to run your software as an admin, and have your software do it.

The problem then is that the user is an admin, and can still change the system time.