IE9 on Win7 SP1 machines.
In a public library and we want to set up some machines for public access that run the browser (IE9) to perform searches.
In the case where a user would search and walk away, or search and close the browser window, I need the ability to redisplay the home page again after a certain period of inactivity (no mouse or keyboard input), say about 3-5 minutes.
IE has no provision for this that could be set - or preferably set in Group Policy.
I've tried using Task Scheduler with a task to close/reopen the browser. Scheduled tasks for an idle condition do not work as expected in Win7 - example, 3-5 minutes of no keyboard/mouse input does not actually constitute an idle state and the documentation is unclear as to when this would actually execute even if it did - hint, it's not 3-5 minutes... (btw, this method worked perfectly in XP...)
I've tried another method described in other forums where I've created a batch file and converted it to a screen saver. This only partially works, as the screen saver executes once, but does not execute again after that - (same batch file commands to close/reopen the browser)
So the only thing I've found (to date) is the screen saver that executes a restart of the machine, which is set to autologon as a guest user and start the browser. This is rather cludgy and can take a minute or so to execute.
We've had many complaints about the constant restarts of the machines, so I'm back trying to find something else. I've tried researching this at various times and am always surprised that this feature isn't a setting in IE, but also that there is nothing else out there to perform this seemingly simple task.
Short of loading Opera (which has this feature, but then presents some Group Policy issues...) how do you redisplay the home page after x-minutes of inactivity from the keyboard/mouse?
TIA
Rick