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At work there are over 30 PC, some of them are Windows Vista Home and Windows 7 Home.
I just realized Windows Server is not worth it because it require to connect "Domain" on the clients PC. Windows Home does not support that and it will be very expensive buy licences for Professional or Business windows.
I am looking for alternative to Windows Server, something basic that I can block the desktop, some software, USB devices, and limit access to the websites.
Thanks!
Oddly enough, everything you are asking to do is part of the reason why PCs SHOULD join a domain. Since you can do pretty much everything you ask for with the OS. But I digress. You can do this all manually without joining a domain by logging onto each computer and first changing the Local Admin password.
Use the Group Policy editor to change the current settings on the computer. Go to the next computer. Rinse and repeat for 30 computers . . .
An alternative is to look at Windows Small Business Server. It is still a chunk of change, but I ask that you rethink your decision. Keep in mind if you lock down these computers, you'll have to pretty much login to EACH computer to update a single component, like Flash. Otherwise, every time your users log in, they'll be presented with the Flash update dialog, then try to update, and they have to cancel cause they don't have admin rights. And that will continue EVERY TIME THEY LOG IN, until you get around to their machine . . .
edit: Humm, I did think of a faster way. Save the registry edits that Group Policy editor does and merge them into each computer. Dangerous yes. But free!!!!!!!!!
There are a few routes you could take. Ultimately, having a centrally managed system using Active Directory is going to be far easier for you than trying to jerry-rig the functionality built-in to Professional versions of Windows, but there are options:
BizSpark: If your company is a start-up, you are eligible for the Microsoft BizSpark program, which gives companies access to a wide variety of Microsoft software for extremely reduced prices. You could obtain both Windows 7 Professional and Windows Server licenses through this program.
Volume Licensing: If you need to buy licenses for anywhere from 5 to hundreds of thousands of computers, Microsoft Volume Licensing is the easiest and overall cheapest method. Depending on what type of agreement you make, you can either purchase 30 upgrade licenses just once, and install Windows 7 Pro on all of your machines, or you can purchase a Software Assurance agreement, which entitles you to upgrade (or downgrade) to any version of Windows, even when new ones are released.
Retail upgrade licenses: this is probably the most expensive option, so I would advise against it, but you can just flat-our purchase upgrade licenses. Since you mentioned expense in your question, this is probably not a great suggestion.
If you can swing some Windows 7 Pro licenses, but don't want to pay for a Windows Server license (which can be quite pricey), there's also the option of using SAMBA as your domain controller. This gives you most of the functionality you're asking for - essentially, the ability to set up group policy. It runs on Linux, and there are also lots of options for internet filtering which run on Linux as well.
If your organization really can't afford Windows 7 Professional licenses (and really, trying to spin your own solution will most likely cost you more long-term because of all the development and support time, but as you wish), you can try to make your own solution. I've done this before for around 10 computers, so it's probably doable with 30, it'll just be painful, and if your organization grows even further, it'll really suck.
You'll want to check out the Group Policy Settings Reference for Windows. This gives a comprehensive list of all Group Policy Settings (which are what you use to restrict users' desktop actions), including - most importantly - the registry settings for these restrictions. There are a few problems though:
So yes, it is possible to get around the limitations of having Home editions of Windows, and hopefully that document will be a good place to start. But I still think it's going to be way more trouble than it's worth.
The other question to ask yourself is, "is it worth all this trouble just so that users can't change their background picture and access the command prompt?" In most small organizations, the answer is probably, "no, it isn't," so if your supervisor is demanding that you implement these restrictions - which more often than not get in the user's way rather than save anybody time - you should really make the argument that if they want to enforce those rules, they'll have to buy the proper tools to make it possible.
You're going to have to set up a server. I'm surprised you didn't have one already with 30 PCs in one office.
The home versions of Windows are not designed to be centrally managed. It used to be done on Windows 3.11 and Win9x using Novell Netware, but I have not seen that being used anywhere for many years.
As Shinrai points out in the comments to another answer, Home versions of Windows don't support Group Policy, so it's simply impossible do much of what you're asking on those machines.
The only thing you list that can be done with your setup is Internet filtering, which can be done with Linux server configured to be a transparent proxy. For more information on configuring this, see this answer on Server Fault.
