No Explore.exe at Startup

[Ansa]

How do you create an user account on Windows XP that only loads one program (not even explorer.exe) at startup? I would like to have 2 accounts on the computer. One has the administrative privilege and can access all programs. The other one only runs the desired program, and no access to any other programs and not even the permission to the task manager.

[PeejAvery]

You can't disable access to explorer. You can, using group policy editor, disable the control panel which almost completely limits a user. But, to limit a person from every application but one, you will have to add every program to a denied list.

[Craig Gemmill]

It's called a lot of names, but the generic is a "custom shell".

You can force Windows to load any single executable that you want as the main interface (shell).

Like PeeJ said, you can use group policy to lock down the system, and you can even specify a custom shell in group policy (User Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\Custom User Interface).

Using Group Policy on a non-domain machine is not exactly trivial when trying to apply settings for specific users, so if you just want to set the custom shell, do it directly in the registry for that user:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\Shell="calc.exe"

String value.

Edit: By the way, this setup is also referred to as "kiosk" mode. This may help you search for further details.