We have a domain composed by a Windows Server 2012R2 that controls 40 laptop with Windows 8 connected via WiFi.
Our goal is to prevent users to disconnect the wifi or, even worst, connect to other networks.
We restrict the network policies as suggest
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732613(v=ws.10).aspx, and http://www.grouppolicy.biz/2010/03/how-to-use-group-policy-to-blackwhite-list-wireless-networks-in-vista-windows-7/
This worked well using Windows Vista as client, but with Windows 8 it didn't work. The main problem is that any user can disconnect the wifi using the right sidebar, and also disconnect to the network.
Do you know if there are other kind of policies to prevent that? Or do you know a way to completely disable the right windows 8 sidebar?
Thanks
Best Answer
We also had kind of the same problem. All that we did was disabling WiFi and Bluetooth through device manager and restricting users to Local Users group so that they might not be able to install/uninstall or enable/disable devices. This is a much simple by effective way (as proved to us).
We had also even tried to delete the driver files from system32 and system32\drivers folders but when the device manager is refreshed, windows 8.1 quickly re-installs the drivers from no-where.
So we simply disabled the devices from Device Manager.