Help Disabling Integrated webcam

[Luke_T]

Hey All,

We have some of the lovely new RM 1 v3 machines in and they come with an integrated webcam which the kids and staff have been making remarkably good use of. However some of them do abuse it ... so we're looking for a way of managing it remotely, ie: disable / enable as required.

At the moment we can enable and disable the students access to the webcam software, but when we do this Windows XP brings up it's own utility in: My Computer - Scanners & Cameras - USB Video Device. This still llows them access to the webcam and taking photos.

Hoping someone can help me with:

(a) a program that will enable / disable them remotely on a whim, either a management suite or just general remote hardware disabling.
(b) directions to where in the windows shell this functionality lies so that we can create a reg frag we can apply on restarts.

This may all be pipe dream until we Vista and GPO control of USB devices.

Thanks for any help!

Luke

[HullFC]

Hey All,

We have some of the lovely new RM 1 v3 machines in and they come with an integrated webcam which the kids and staff have been making remarkably good use of. However some of them do abuse it ... so we're looking for a way of managing it remotely, ie: disable / enable as required.

At the moment we can enable and disable the students access to the webcam software, but when we do this Windows XP brings up it's own utility in: My Computer - Scanners & Cameras - USB Video Device. This still llows them access to the webcam and taking photos.

Hoping someone can help me with:

(a) a program that will enable / disable them remotely on a whim, either a management suite or just general remote hardware disabling.
(b) directions to where in the windows shell this functionality lies so that we can create a reg frag we can apply on restarts.

This may all be pipe dream until we Vista and GPO control of USB devices.

Thanks for any help!

Luke

I don't have any of these to try this in but I run something like regmon (microsoft/sysinternals) or regshot (sourceforge) then check the advanced tab on the web-cams property pages in device manager for an off switch. If that exists then switch it off and run regmon/regshot again to find out what has altered.

My only thought is that it may need a reboot to detect this change (unless anyone has an easy way of running a hardware detect?)

Shaun

[OutToLunch]

A little bit of reading up on the DevCon command might sort this - you could actually disable the webcam rather than the software. IIRC it works over the network too

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311272

[sted]

dont suppose the camera has a service you could just stop via ad?

[computer_expert]

A little bit of reading up on the DevCon command might sort this - you could actually disable the webcam rather than the software. IIRC it works over the network too

The DevCon command-line utility functions as an alternative to Device Manager

this was how one of my mates disabled the webcam in a laptop.

it also worked for disabling a soundcard in a desktop machine.

and yes, it was deployed over an AD network

[Luke_T]

Thanks for the replies ... I'll look into it soon as and post with feedback on what worked & how.

[ZeroHour]

Also you could look at group policy preferences as they can enable/disable devices using GP for free.
Not sure how flexible it is but it may be able to help and its MS ware for free.

[ChrisS]

Seen: RM Communities

I recently made a package to do the exact same thing (Disable RM V3 webcams so have the correct PID for the device)

Instructions to create the package:

1) Download DevCon from The DevCon command-line utility functions as an alternative to Device Manager and extract to a dedicated folder

2) Create a file called "Driver_Disable.cmd" with the following contents:
COPY devcon.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32
devcon disable *PID_5606

3) Create a file called "Driver_Enable.cmd" with the following contents:
devcon enable *PID_5606
DEL C:\WINDOWS\system32\devcon.exe

4) Create a file called "Disable RM One v3 Webcam.ini" with the follwing contents:
[Package]
Description=Disables the Webcam device using MS DevCon.exe
Version=1.0.0.0
OS=5.1WS
ExeFile=Driver_Disable.cmd
UninstallExeFile=Driver_Enable.cmd
Addcommand= /passive /quiet /norestart
UninstallCommand= /passive /quiet /norestart

5) Import into the RMMC as a CC3 package

This package copies over the file devcon.exe to the local %systemroot%\system32 folder and runs a command from this
which disables the device driver. On un-assignment this re-enables the device and deletes the devcon.exe file.

Works a treat and you can simply change the PID to reflect whatever device you want to disable so is a nice template package also.

If you're assigning this on CC4 then you need to make sure you have made a small registry change to all computers before this will work. See here for further details

All files created and downloaded above just sit in the root folder so you should have devcon.exe, Driver_Disable.cmd & Driver_Enable.cmd together.

Also check on the station your testing on whether the reg fragment has actually been applied before assigning out the package.

The tell tail sign for the cmd/bat issue is the error:
After Package Failue Reason : EXE error, check Event Viewer on machine for more detail: Executable package operation failed to complete : 1
in the latest log file in C:\Program Files\Research Machines\Network Management\LogFiles\Service Host (RM Installation Agent) TOC.html so have a quick look there too.

Oh and check the PID is the same on your computers under device manager....Should be the same but worth a check

[Chunks_]

Hi,

i know this thread is a little old, i stumbled up on it while trying to do the same thing. I found a way of disabling the integrated webcam on windows 7 without using devcon and thought it might be of some use. It certainly works with RM integrated camera and is done by tweaking the registry. Here is a link to disable the integrated webcam. Includes an adm template.

hope it helps others.

[d-taylor]

Just implemented this ADM template, nice quick fix! Thanks!

[Chunks_]

Glad i could be of help !