Restricting AB Commander

You may find that AB Commander is too powerful in some situations. For example, if you manage a public network, the users may often do undesirable things (like deleting the system files, just for the fun of it), and cause you, the administrator, unnecessary trouble. If you are in such a situation, you will be glad to know that AB Commander lets you restrict any aspect of its operation: you can disable some commands while leaving others enabled, you can lock down the sizes and positions of the windows displayed by AB Commander, you can limit the navigation to the folder of your choice (and its subfolders). In other words, you can make it just as restricted or as powerful as you want.

To set up the desired restrictions, use the system policy management tool that comes with your version of Windows, such as Group Policy, or Policy Editor. Please refer to Windows Help and Windows Resource Kit (available from Microsoft) for the instructions on how to use such a tool.

The restrictions that AB Commander supports are provided in the file abcmdr.adm (you can find this file in the folder where you have installed AB Commander).

Note: The instructions below assume that you use Windows XP Pro. For other versions of Windows, please refer to the instructions specific to your version of System Policy Editor, on how to import the abcmdr.adm file in it properly.

Copy the abcmdr.adm file into the folder C:\WINDOWS\system32\GroupPolicy\Adm and then run the Group Policy Editor (C:\WINDOWS\system32\gpedit.msc). You will find the policies specific to AB Commander in the following locations:

Computer Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ WinAbility \ AB Commander

License
Lets you enter your licensing information for AB Commander. You may find this policy useful if you manage a large number of computers, and you want to save time by propagating the licensing information to each computer through this policy, instead of entering it manually on each computer.

User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ WinAbility \ AB Commander

General
General settings that affect other policies. Currently you can set up a custom text message to be displayed when a user chooses a restricted command (or, you can make it not to display any message at all, by leaving the message box empty).
Preload Settings
Lets you specify the file from which AB Commander should load its settings every time it starts up. To produce the file with the settings, use the Tools - Export Settings command. If you set up this policy, then any changes to the AB Commander settings (including the positions of the windows, options, history lists, etc.) will be lost when AB Commander runs next time.
Root folder
If you enter a path to some folder here, then AB Commander will refuse to display any other folder: the user would be able to see only the contents of the specified folder and its subfolders. You may find this restriction of use if you want each user to be able to manage files in his or her personal document folder, without being able to disrupt the system files and the files that belong to other users.

You can also specify an optional alternative root folder, to be used to display files in the second panel. If both the root folder and the alternative root folder are specified, then the value of the root folder is used for the first panel, and the value of the alternative root folder is used for the second panel. If the alternative root folder is not specified, then the value of the root folder is used for both panels.
Visual elements
You can use these restrictions to prevent moving or resizing the main window, the toolbars, and other such elements of the user interface of AB Commander.
Folder menu
Settings to restrict the commands on the Folder menu and related commands.
Command menu
Settings to restrict the commands on the Command menu and related commands.
Prompt menu
Settings to restrict the commands on the Prompt menu and related commands. (The Insert... commands are not restricted individually, but they are restricted automatically when you restrict the Switch To command.)
View menu
Settings to restrict the commands on the View menu and related commands.
Tools menu
Settings to restrict the commands on the Tools menu and related commands.
Panel menu
Settings to restrict the commands on the Panel menu and related commands.
Help menu
Settings to restrict the commands on the Help menu and related commands.
Shell commands
Settings to restrict the commands that can be entered directly from the keyboard. Note that these restrictions do not apply to the commands available from the panel toolbars. If you want to restrict the latter, you should hide the panel toolbars and disable the Panel - Toolbar command (to prevent the user from making the panel toolbar shown).