Simple Startup Script Ensures Compliance to Government's File Requirements

 Executive Summary:

The Department of Defense (DoD) establishes strict security guidelines and standards that all DoD agencies must follow in their networks. Sometimes the requirements can seem daunting. For example, Windows desktops must be configured to treat 48 different file types with care. To make the registry settings needed to comply with established requirements for these file types, Rick Bridges wrote a VBScript script that uses the Microsoft Scripting Runtime Library's Dictionary object and Windows Management Instrumentation's (WMI's) StdRegProv class. As Rick learned, scripts can make seemingly daunting requirements easy to meet.

As anyone who has worked on a Department of Defense (DoD) network will tell you, security in those environments is paramount. There are strict security guidelines and standards that all DoD agencies must follow. If you don’t follow the rules, the DoD can and probably will pull the plug on your network. Although the requirements improve network security, meeting them can be challenging because sometimes they're set with little or no guidance on how to achieve compliance. By no means is this an indictment of the DoD security guidelines and standards; they simply set the course and establish direction. Once the need to get from point A to point B is established, the mode of transportation utilized is of little concern. . . .