Stop any other program while running VBA?

[Atroxell]

Hi all,

My friend is in the distilled spirits industry and has periodic open houses. During the open house he currently asks visitors to fill out paper forms, giving him their names and email addresses. These are used for newsletters and events notification and such. But the data is often collected in the evening when the light is low and at random levels of conciousness. As a result, he says on average about 30% of the data collected is illegible and therefore useless to him. It also ends up being a black eye for him and an annoyance to his customers when they return and say "I never got an email." You just can't tell them "You need to write better" or "You should have done it before the walnut liquer..."

So I am writing a short little userform/macro for him to collect the information in a more reliable format that will at least allow him to read the data the customer types in---even if it may be entered incorrectly anyway. He will also eventually be able to automate a certain amount of the emailing using the list.

Well, to do this, I envision in the end he will be doing something like placing a laptop on a table with the form up and Excel hidden. Not a problem, but a risk.

Is there a way in which I can stop anyone from coming up to the laptop and attempting to access any other program on the computer while the form is in use?

I can assume that he will not put a laptop out with sensitive information on it, but I like to cover all my bases without relying on an assumption. Especially when these events would occur in a geographic area known for its computer-savvy population and his clientele are commonly part of it...

TIA!

 

[Atroxell]

*bump*

Anyone?

Through searching the web it seems like there should be a way to intercept a mouse click through the API and stopping it through that direction.

But I do not understand how to implement the API code--if I do understand things correctly.

Anyone?

 

[Atroxell]

Call this thread dead.

Rather than trying to block any other application, I just added code to maximize the form to cover the Desktop, then disabled the X button on the top.

Now the casual user cannot see anything on the computer and cannot close the form.

And now for my next question...

 

[Rekd]

As far as protecting the entire computer while in Excel, you're dreaming.

Some of the things I've seen my 7 year old do while at stores that do this type of thing are:

ALT-F4
ATL-TAB
CTRL-ALT-DEL
WIN95 key

Just to name a few. Yeah, my kid's a bit sharper than most kids his age, but people will snoop.

If you're hell-bent on doing it this way at least create a highly restricted user account and clean everything out of it except the spreadsheet. That way when they DO get past your spreadsheet they won't be able to see anything or do anything unless they're more advanced.

 

[Atroxell]

ROFL!

Sounds like your kid is like mine. Yeah, I kinda sorta gave up on the approach when no one responded for 24 hours.

So far the best I can do is to lock the form down while it fills the whole screen. I will try a few more ideas, then probably settle for the best result. I can't keep anyone from doing any of the above keystrokes, and I can't stop people who are going to fool with things from being themselves.

This kind of goes hand in hand with the concept of locks on car doors--they keep honest people honest, but do nothing against crooks.

Thanks for your response!

 

[xenou]

Not really a solution but your friend may want to create a new user with limited privileges - if you were savvy enough you could put more restrictions on the user but at the least you'd not want an admin user active on an unattended pc.

 

[Rekd]

Another option is an actual program (VB or C++ or...) that will give you more control.

Not really a solution but your friend may want to create a new user with limited privileges - if you were savvy enough you could put more restrictions on the user but at the least you'd not want an admin user active on an unattended pc.

Hey, that's a great idea! Oh, wait...

If you're hell-bent on doing it this way at least create a highly restricted user account and clean everything out of it except the spreadsheet. That way when they DO get past your spreadsheet they won't be able to see anything or do anything unless they're more advanced.

 

[xenou]

Hey, that's a great idea! Oh, wait...

Sorry.