Customizing Windows 98 for young children

I'm copying this to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion.

For future reference, for questions and issues that touch on windows 98,
I recommend you include that newsgroup, because it's pretty much the
only active win-98 group on usenet these days. The group that you
posted to originally has almost no traffic or readership.

And you might want to look into the win-98 discussion forum on msfn.org
once in a while. Lots of good stuff happening there regarding win-98.

Magnus Österlund wrote:

I'm use an old computer as game computer to my 4-year-old boy. I
installed Windows 98 on it and put icons to his game on the
desktop.

The problem is that he constantly moves the icons and then can not
find the games. How do I lock the icons? And how do I delete My
computer, and the other icons, he does not need

I'll let others try to answer those two questions first. Offhand I
don't know the answer, but I might try to find one if nobody else posts
an answer.

In addition, I would not want him to have to log in every time he
starts the computer. How do I fix that?

To answer this login question, see this:

===============
How to Prevent a Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me Logon Prompt at
Startup
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/152104
===============

On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 08:47:50 -0500
98 Guy wrote:

I'm copying this to microsoft.public.win98.gen_discussion.

For future reference, for questions and issues that touch on windows 98,
I recommend you include that newsgroup, because it's pretty much the
only active win-98 group on usenet these days. The group that you
posted to originally has almost no traffic or readership.

And you might want to look into the win-98 discussion forum on msfn.org
once in a while. Lots of good stuff happening there regarding win-98.

Magnus Österlund wrote:

I'm use an old computer as game computer to my 4-year-old boy. I
installed Windows 98 on it and put icons to his game on the
desktop.

The problem is that he constantly moves the icons and then can not
find the games. How do I lock the icons? And how do I delete My
computer, and the other icons, he does not need

Have you tried putting the game(s) on the quicklaunch toolbar instead?

[...]

[]
Magnus Österlund wrote:

I'm use an old computer as game computer to my 4-year-old boy. I
installed Windows 98 on it and put icons to his game on the
desktop.

The problem is that he constantly moves the icons and then can not
find the games. How do I lock the icons? And how do I delete My
computer, and the other icons, he does not need

[]
For maintaining desktop icon positions -
Either:
Get an icon position memorise/restoration tool. I use EzDesk, but there
are others available (all free). Arrange for it to run at startup (I
think EzDesk does by default anyway). This won't actually lock the
icons, but will make it possible to return them to a saved set of
positions (including automatically at startup).
Or:
Turn on auto-arrange icons; they might not be where you want, but will
at least always be in the same place. And you could always add a few
dummy blank icons with suitable names (and/or rename the icon for the
game - "!" at the start of the name usually puts an icon first) to bring
it to the middle of the screen or whatever. In conjunction with the
second half of this answer. Auto-arrange (right click on empty part of
desktop, select arrange icons by, tick auto) _will_ in effect lock the
icons - I think you can still drag them, but as soon as you let go
they'll go back to where they were.

To get rid of My Computer etc.:
I'm sure registry tweaks are underneath it, but the PowerTool "TweakUI"
(tweak user interface) will do it. The PowerTools are actually developed
by people inside Microsoft, and available from Microsoft (I'm not sure
if the '9x ones still are, but if not, should be findable, just Google
TweakUI or PowerTools - make sure you get the '9x one though), just not
actually supported. It's a bit fiddly to find where in TweakUI the bit
that determines what icons are and aren't on the desktop, but you only
need to do that once.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G.5AL-IS-P--Ch++(p)Ar@T0H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Can you open your mind without it falling out?