Question

I’m trying to build a simple app for parenting control in .NET. The main idea is to force a certain user account to run my app and to block all access to windows desktop UI. Anyone know how can i achieve this or where should i start researching? Thanks.

Answer 1

I was searching for this for a while and just found what seems to be a great example of something similar to what you might be trying to achieve. The well-known programming blogger Scott Hanselman wrote his BabySmash! program and hosted it over at CodePlex. It may not be exactly what you want, but looking at the methods he uses to block interaction with the OS/other programs outside your own might give you some ideas.

Description from the CodePlex page:

As babies smash on the keyboard,
colored shapes, letters and numbers
appear on the screen. Baby Smash will
lock out the Windows Key, as well as
Ctrl-Esc and Alt-Tab so your baby
can’t get out of the application.
Pressing ALT-F4 will exit the
application and Shift-Ctrl-Alt-O
brings up the options dialog.

I wrote BabySmash! for my 2 year old
and 5 month old so they could bang on
the keyboards of my Windows machines
without hurting anything. It’s a
copy/homage of the very fine and free
AlphaBaby for the Macintosh. BabySmash
is free also and I’ll release the
source code on my blog soon. Enjoy.