Customizing Remote Web Workplace

Because RWW is a web interface, there are several ways to customize it to meet your particular wants or needs. This section provides information on several customizations you may want to look at for your RWW installation.

Caution

Be warned that some of the customizations listed here involve changes to the Registry on the SBS server. Be sure to make a good backup of the Registry before making any changes detailed here.

Changing the Look and Feel of RWW

The RWW logon page and web page headers are built from images in the Remote directory. The two key images involved in the logon page are login.gif and RwwOEMlogo.gif. The RwwOEMlogo.gif file is a white image that displays in the lower right-hand corner of the white login box. This image file is 135x20 pixels in size and does not appear to display because the rest of the window it displays in is also white. Login.gif is the image that displays as the top banner of the logon page, and is 448x175 pixels. You can change the contents of these two files to alter the appearance of the RWW logon page; just keep in mind that the image dimensions should remain the same to keep in line with the code. The files should be backed up before making any changes. Those who are more adventurous can look at the logon.aspx file and adjust the table settings to alter the appearance even further. Just be aware that code errors in this file could break the logon process and keep users from accessing RWW.

The other image files stored in the Remote\images directory can also be modified as desired to change the appearance of the RWW menu. The top banner of each RWW page is essentially a table with a gray background to match the background of the SBS logo image that appears on the right of the banner.

Increasing the Default Timeout Values in RWW

As noted earlier in the chapter, the default timeout values for RWW are 20 minutes when the Public Computer check box is enabled during RWW logon and two hours otherwise. These values are stored in the Registry as PublicTimeOut and TRustedTimeOut under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SmallBusinessServer\RemoteUserPortal. These values are stored in minutes, so by default PublicTimeOut is 20 (0x14), and TRustedTimeOut is 120 (0x78). If you increase these values in the Registry, they take effect the next time a user logs in to RWW.

Excluding Systems from Remote Control List

By default, all Windows XP workstations on the network show up in the Connect to Client Computers and Connect to My Computer at Work lists. You may find that there are some systems that you do not want to make available to your users for remote control. You can add a Registry value to exclude certain systems from the list. Follow these steps to add the value:

1.	Open regedit and browse to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SmallBusinessServer\RemoteUserPortal.
2.	Right-click on RemoteUserPortal and select New, String Value.
3.	Name the new value ExcludeList.
4.	Add the workstation names you want to exclude, separated by commasfor example, jondough01, sarahdough01, jimdough01.
5.	Close regedit.

The next time users log in to RWW and pull up the list of desktops, the computers listed in the Registry value will not display. Again, there is no way to selectively allow systems to appear based on user or group information. This is an all or nothing change.

Prevent Users from Connecting Local Drives to the Remote Computer

The option to allow users to connect the disk drives from their local computer to the remote computer when remotely controlling a workstation through RWW is a useful feature in some environments and a security nightmare in others. One of the advantages of using RWW over VPN is that you never allow a computer from outside the SBS network direct network access to any of the other systems. The Enable Files or Folders to Be Transferred Between the Remote Computer and This Computer option in RWW unfortunately does exactly that.

If you have a corporate policy that prohibits remote, unprotected computers from having direct file access to other systems on the network, you do not want to have this option enabled for your users. Use the following steps to modify RWW to prevent that option from showing for your users. Unfortunately, there is no way to make this option selective based on user account or other criteria. This modification is an all or nothing prospect, and because this modification is not officially supported by Microsoft, you may not be able to get support if you encounter problems after making these changes.

1.	Browse to the C:\inetpub\Remote directory on the server.
2.	Make a copy of the selectpc.aspx file and name the backup selectpc_original.aspx or something similar.
3.	Open selectpc.aspx in Notepad or another text editor.
4.	Find the following lines in the file: [View full width] <asp:CheckBox TabIndex="7" runat="server" Css></asp :CheckBox><BR> <asp:CheckBox TabIndex="8" runat="server" Css Checked="True"></asp:CheckBox><BR> <asp:CheckBox TabIndex="9" runat="server" Css></asp :CheckBox><BR><BR>
5.	Change those three lines (each line should start with <asp:CheckBox) as follows: [View full width] <asp:CheckBox TabIndex="7" runat="server" Css Checked="True"></asp:CheckBox><BR> <asp:CheckBox TabIndex="8" runat="server" Css></asp :CheckBox><BR><BR> <asp:CheckBox TabIndex="9" runat="server" visible="false" Css></asp:CheckBox><BR>
6.	Save the changes to the file, and the option will not be visible the next time a user views all the options.

Be sure that each of those lines does not wrapthere should only be three lines, and each one should start with <asp:CheckBox.