Windows "Settings" program?

[gottaluvlasers]

Hey guys and gals-

is there a program available that can act similar to the "User accounts" option in Windows? *HOWEVER* it needs to also store the system settings i make for each user.

Example-

User "Marc"

-no screen saver
-plain black desktop background
-wirelss card on
-Anti Virus on
-all hardware and services on

User "DJ"

-No screen saver
-NO Anti virus (disabled in "msconfig"
-All non essentail hardware in device mgr. disabled.
-Wirelss card off

"User Accounts" in Win7 does not allow for hardware settings just for basic settings saving like desktop color, screensaver settings. stuff like that.

Any ideas?

-Marc

[cyberb0b]

Why you want to disable all sorts of hardware?

I run laser software with photo-shop on the background without problems.

But i agree with DJ Magnus (msg below), a policy is the best way to go.

[Stuka]

Marc -

I haven't worked with Win 7, but Win XP has a "Hardware Profiles" option (under "System Properties") that lets you select different hardware configurations at Windows startup.

Perhaps Win 7 has something similar?

[DjMagnus]

Hi Marc,
From the top of my head all this is possible with different local user accounts and local policy exeption for the antiviruspart that I dont know if its possible wether to control per userbasis, but a dual boot option would solve it and protect the two users from tampering with eachothers installations.
just my 2 p for the moment.
/Magnus

[Doc]

Not as such Marc, however I found this:

1. DL the “Windows Driver Kit (WDK) 7.1.0″ from MS, it is an ISO image several hundreds meg
2. Using UniversalExtractor (http://legroom.net/software/uniextract) extract the ISO to a temporary folder on HD
3. Again using UniversalExtractor, extract the install file "WDK\setuptools_x64fre.msi" to a temporary dir
4. In that temporary dir you will find "WinDDK\7600.16385.win7_wdk.100208-1538\tools\devcon\amd64\devcon.exe". This devcon works fine (as far as I've tested) for me under W7x64 Pro.
Along the way UniversalExtractor will prompt you with some warnings, just click OK.

Note: devcon MUST be run from an administrator cmd win.
Run "devcon help" and you'll get help for the commands.
Basically, have devcon list the hw and put the list in a file:
devcon hwids * > hwids.txt
Then open that file in a text editor and look for the HW-ID of the devices you want to disable.
Then creat a bat-file with the following commands

devcon disable "blah blah"
This will disable selected devices
Then a corresponding bat-file to enable those devices
devcon enable "blah blah"

Once you have these bat-files make a shortcuts to them, so that they can be run as administrator. This is a must. Always use the shortcuts.
In addition, in the same bat-files, I disable anti-virus, and a whole bunch of services that aren't necessary once the wi-fi is disabled. This looks like
sc stop Dhcp
You have to experiment a little with your own particular setup, but it's not too hard, and all of it basically corresponds to defining a different HW-profile. You can of course have several disable/enable bat-files, one set for each HW-profile you need.

[gottaluvlasers]

thanks for the suggestions guys.

gotta try some of this.

@cyberbob:

i use "serato" when i DJ. and i get a few hiccups here and there when running the program. I dont quite understand why either. i am running an I7 laptop quad core 8 threads and 6GB Ram and USB 3.0. This computer should be able to run 100 instances of Serato simultaneously with no problems at all. however, during my sets last night i disabled my wireless and Anti virus and it ran smooth the rest of the night.

So, instead of manually disabling this and that and msconfig'ing, i would rather just set up a profile with all non essential services disabled. it kinda sucks being mid-set with 1500 people going crazy and all of a sudden the music "hiccup."

I know, i know...get a MAC!!! lol...

-Marc

[DjMagnus]

Sounds like a lot of work with the batchfiles there, bet it work though.
Dont know why you need to have this dualuser setup instead of just spending the extra 20-30 minutes making a extra installation of windows booting the os for wich purpose that it is needed.
1500 people? sounds like a nice venue there! nothing really that big in my town, not dancefloorwise anyway
Edit: btw, did you try excluding directories of the software and mediafiles from the realtime scanning engine in AV? might help. but I would probably go with the dualboot solution. ( i use traktor scratch pro with macbook )

[cyberb0b]

I have send you a pm..

[Geetone]

Serato is the issue))) Even from the first version, it hangs every moment it wants, wireless or not and sounds like shit))))
After six years on VirtualDj without an error, I really suggest you buy VDJ or Traktor, with or without mac. That's the way to tear dancefloors apart without being afraid of BSOD or hang)))

[JohnYayas]

Depends on how the application or driver was programmed. The programmer chooses whether the settings are on a per user or per machine basis and typically follows the Windows "best practices" to make that happen. But, they are free to use their own configuration management system which will make it impossible to control via Windows settings or any external utility. So, you might luck out but maybe not. Good luck.