Hidden Benefits

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Provisio started developing dedicated kiosk software as early as 1996. We have now moved one step further to achieving the objectives of our latest customer project. Our customer is a manufacturer of medical equipment which operates world-wide. They ship their devices in combination with desktop PCs running Windows. The PCs run the company’s own software which is used to control the medical equipment.

Apart from the safety requirements mentioned above, our customer had another, very special request: Microsoft Windows certainly, but only if it is running underneath the surface! Why? These days, almost anyone who has used Windows before knows how to adjust its controls and setting options. When sitting directly in front of a Windows operating system, people tend to adjust or change this or that option to their requirements. Unfortunately, this often leads to users opening applications (such as Solitaire) which have nothing to do with the actual task at hand. Worse yet, when confronted with constant ‘Unrestricted Access’ warnings, users will easily become frustrated.
 
If, however, they gain the impression from the very beginning that they are working on a device that is not actually running Windows, but a company-owned operating system, users will not even be tempted to access ‘hidden’ Windows features. As it can be customised to fit a company’s corporate design, the desktop looks professional and, at the same time, reduces the available features and applications to the ones that are desired. For instance, the taskbar sports a 'shut down' button in the lower left corner rather than the familiar Windows 'start' button.In addition to designing this desktop, we managed to provide our customer with other customisation and restriction tools including a file manager and a task manager. It is even possible to define user rights at any time using an admin tool without the need to leave the secure desktop.