Michael,
It sounds like your breaking/bending at the behest of 1 user. (not good if you ask me..) and by the sound of it not a very experienced user at that, especially if he trusts any software that has antivirus or antimalware in its title.
I'm sorry, but you misunderstood my message. That was just an example, an anecdote as I'm trying to sound as human rather than as a corporate bot and explain our position rather than speaking like a pr person :)
Our decision regarding removing the "hide tray icon" couldn't be more serious and well-thought. The same is true just about any other feature that we are planning to add or remove. You can only see the end result of it, i.e. the actual addition or removal, but there a long process of discussing and thinking a few months or even years prior to that where we weigh all pros and cons.
how do I prevent a user from stopping the host? I reviewed the information in your blog post. however it does not seem to prevent a user from stopping the host via the start menu/all programs. it can also be done via services.msc
There is a broader question - why would the technician want to prohibit the user from stopping the Host when they wish to do so? Provided that they know what the Host is about.
If the user wants to stop the Host running on their PC using services.msc, then:
- they are an advanced user, apparently, if they know about services.msc and use it to stop the Host at all costs
- they don't want the Host running on their computer, so they are perfectly in their own right stopping it
So we are getting back to the question implicitly posed in the blog post/news about this update: if the software use is perfectly legitimate and the user knows they have a remote access software installed on their PC, why would they want to stop it? But if they want to stop it, why would anyone prohibit them from doing so? Except only in a business setting where computers do not belong to employees - but it should be handled by policies on the network/Active Directory level.
Yes, you can hide the Host menu or protect the Host settings, but that's mostly to prevent the user from messing with the settings inadvertently. These features have nothing to do with truly prohibiting the user from being the ultimate master of their own PC :) If it's not their PC, they are not supposed to be an administrator on it, and hence they won't be able to stop the service if they have insufficient privileges.