The perfect Kiosk platform
Windows 7 is a great operating system environment to run kiosk or single-purpose applications such as POS or multimedia systems. Its ability to accommodate nearly any program from a variety of development environments makes it an ideal platform. Adobe Flash, Silverlight, Java, Microsoft.Net, and HTML are some of the available development languages to create rich interactive kiosk applications and disposable that will run on Windows 7. In addition, there are several variations of Windows 7 available to perform 'application from low-cost (Windows Home Premium), for the fully functional (Windows Enterprise). The Windows version choice will depend on the functionality needed for your application and your budget. For example, if you do not need business networking capabilities, Windows 7 Home Premium is a lower cost solution.
There is another version of Windows 7 called Windows 7 built. Windows 7 built-in provides complete customization of the operating system, is lightweight, and is primarily for use single-purpose applications. In essence, it is Windows stripped down without services or added applications. It adds to it what is needed for the application. This sounds perfect for kiosks and disposable implementations, however, a higher degree of IT skills is necessary for its implementation and it is expensive unless a high volume of licenses purchased. In addition, Microsoft makes only available to OEM hardware vendors.
Lock Down Windows 7 with Inteset safe Lockdown
One advantage of using Windows 7 Embedded is the its reduced out-of-the-box operation. In contrast, Windows 7 retail versions are loaded with the operating system by improving applications, utilities and services. In this case, if you are using a retail version of Windows 7 for the implementation of the kiosk, it is very important to optimize it and lock it down so that users do not have access to functions and unwanted operations. This can be accomplished several ways. One is through the Group Policy Editor in Windows 7. However, this utility is designed for large organizations that need to control employee access to operating system functions and not so much for the kiosk deployments. In addition, the Group Policy Editor is not available on Windows 7 Home Premium.
An inexpensive, flexible, yet simple alternative to Windows 7 Embedded or the Group Policy Editor is available through the use of a secure utility called Lockdown v2 by Inteset, LLC (1). Secure Lockdown works on any final version of Windows 7. This utility creates a virtual integrated environment for which the master application is the only one accessible by the end user. Essentially removes the Windows 7 desktop environment access and sequences of unwanted keys and manages the application exclusive master. It can be activated simply by applying some configuration settings and checking the Enable option.
Windows 7 Optimization for your application
Before enabling Lockdown safe in the first place it makes sense to optimize the operating system environment for use with the kiosk application. Preparation of a final version of Windows 7 with Secure Lockdown is the opposite of preparing a Windows Embedded environment 7. Instead of adding functionality, you strip Windows unnecessary programs and services. Windows 7 makes this easy to do with its features of Windows tools and services. Note that removing Windows features optimizes disk space. It 'simply removes applications to be accessible. However, many applications have free services that will be removed, thus increasing the startup speed of the system and increasing the availability of memory. Removal services will increase boot times and significantly memory depending on what services and how many are removed. Analysing those in which the startup type is automatic and disable those that is not necessary.
Some other recommendations to improve performance and usability for our kiosk implementation using secure lockdown are:
Use a solid state drive (SSD) for the operating system. A 32GB SSD drive used for the operating system partition is only relatively inexpensive and will improve the overall performance of the system significantly compared to its rigid counterpart SATA.
- to disable the Windows System Restore feature. This is a necessary feature and will save disk space, if disabled.
- Set the power and the screen saver settings of Windows sleep according to the environment.
- Remove the Microsoft logo from the boot sequence. This can be achieved by modifying the "No GUI boot" option in the Startup tab by using the tool Windows MSConfig Snap-in.
- Customize the Windows 7 home screen / sign in with your company or product logo. This can be accomplished using a tweak Windows Registry (2).
- Customize the background of your Windows desktop with your company or product logo.
Once you have prepared and tested the system with the application kiosk, it is wise to make a backup image of the operating system by using tools like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. Moreover, the creation of an image also easily allow the port configuration to other machines using the same hardware.
Now you have Windows 7 optimized for kiosk application. As a final step, enable Inteset safe Lockdown v2 and the system is ready for the masses.
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