You use applications such as IrfanView so you can see all of the wonderful images on your computer. What you don’t want to see is your helpdesk phones light up because their applications don’t run correctly after they’ve messed up the configuration settings. That’s where PolicyPak comes in. We enforce and lock down the optimum settings that you, the administrator, want them to have. PolicyPak sets and enforces expectations for your users’ applications, so that they get the same experience, every time they launch it. Oh, and PolicyPak also supports IrfanView too, just as we do so many other applications. Keep your IrfanView configuration settings enforced and streamlined with PolicyPak. Check out this video to see how it’s done.

Lockdown IrfanView with Group Policy video transcript

Hi, this is Jeremy Moskowitz, Microsoft MVP, Enterprise Mobility and Founder of PolicyPak Software. In this video, we’re going to learn how to manage and lockdown IrfanView using PolicyPak.

I’ve already got IrfanView installed on my computer, and I’m just a regular user here. As you can see, I’m logged on as a guy called “eastsalesuser4.” If we open up this application from the start menu and go to “Properties/Settings” we see a number of settings here for users to mess up (and make your life very difficult.)

I’ll go to “Browsing/Editing.” I definitely don’t want my users browsing hidden files and folders on their machines and really messing things up. I also don’t want them calling up the helpdesk every time they accidentally delete a file so I want to make sure that under “File Handling” I configure these settings such as “Ask me before deleting files.”

Let’s see how we can ensure compliance and perform desktop management of settings quickly using PolicyPak. I’ll go ahead and switch over to my Management Station computer.

We’ll go ahead and right click over our “East Sales Users”, “Create a GPO” and we’re going to call it “Lockdown IrfanView.” So this GPO is now associated with the “East Sales Users.” I’ll right click over it. I’ll click “Edit…” I’ll dive down under “User Configuration,” “PolicyPak/Applications/New/Application.” There it is, “PolicyPak for IrfanView” along with other applications like “Java,” “Flash” “Firefox,” “Skype” and lots of other important desktop applications that your users utilize every day (and you want to make more secure.).

Let’s start with “Browsing/Editing” and let’s take care of that potential problem we spoke about by making sure that “Show hidden files/folder while browsing through directory” is always unchecked. Notice how the setting became underlined as soon as the checkbox value changed. This means that the setting value is going to be delivered through PolicyPak. Now to make sure that it never becomes checked I am going to right click on it and select “Disable corresponding control in target application.”

Next let’s go to “Properties/Settings.” We can’t depend upon our users to save their stuff whenever they exit the application so let’s check “Ask to Save settings on program exit.”I’ll also disable this setting as well while I’m at it.

Finally, let’s go to “File Handling” and let’s make sure that our users never have their files deleted unknowingly so I am going to check “Ask me before deleting files” as well as “Delete to recycle bin.” Then to absolutely make sure that my users don’t reverse these I am going to right click on each of these settings and select “Hide corresponding control from target application.” This will make these settings totally invisible to the users.

Now I will go back to my client machine, we’ll get a command prompt and run “gpupdate.” Now you could envision the user logging on for the very first time, using a Terminal Services or Citrix machine, using a VDI session, changing job roles, or getting a new computer. I just happen to be using gupdate.

Now that that’s done, let’s go ahead and reopen the application. We can see that our desired settings for Properties/Settings” have been delivered as well as my desired settings in “Browsing/Editing.” Notice too that these settings have been greyed out in both cases. Next we will go to “File Handling” and confirm that our designated setting is completely hidden from view. PolicyPak has once again done its job.

And we are done. That is how incredibly easy it is for you to use PolicyPak to manage and lockdown Irfanview as well as tons of other desktop applications.

If you’re looking for a trial of PolicyPak, just click on the “Webinar / Download” button on the right.

Thanks so much for watching, and get in touch with us if you’re looking to get started. Talk to you soon.