Prevent users from closing a specific process

Question

_{Wednesday, September 4, 2019 9:23 AM}

Hi all

I am looking for a way to prevent users from closing a particular app through the task manager.

This is our organization's app and must run without users being able to close it even those with local administrator privileges.

I could not find group policy and no registry value for it.

I would greatly appreciate any help.

Rash

All replies (2)

_{Thursday, September 5, 2019 2:04 AM ✅Answered}

Hi Rash,

Two things I need to say:

1. It is not possible to prevent Task Manager from closing your organization’s application. Task Manager can forcibly terminate a process that is not responding; it doesn't need the application's permission to close it, and it doesn't ask nicely either.

2. Local admins can do everything on their PC, because he can take ownership of all applications and folders.

If you need something that runs all the time in the background, you should be creating a Windows Service. Of course, services don't have a user interface, and it appears that your organization’s application requires one.

The only method I can think of is creating a password protection for your organization’s app, when user want to close/uninstall it, it prompts to enter password, who doesn’t have password cannot continue, like Symantec client process.

Regards

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_{Thursday, September 5, 2019 4:54 AM}

Hello,

AFAIK, there is no dedicated GPO or registry setting for this.

However, you may want to checkout this thread for some ideas:

https://superuser.com/questions/1169284/is-there-a-way-to-block-guest-users-from-closing-a-certain-program

Hope this helps!

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