Sign in
Microsoft.com
 
Microsoft
 
 
 

locked
Do these features exist? RRS feed

 > 

  • Question

  • Question
    Sign in to vote
    0
    Sign in to vote

    Hi everyone,

     

    I work for a large school district that currently uses Deep Freeze to wipe out all changes after a restart.  There are a few reasons we are interested in switching to Steady State, but there are some features that Deep Freeze offers that I cannot find in SteadyState and I was wondering if I was just missing them. 

     

    I need the ability to save changes, remotely, to multiple computers.  We frequently use Ghost AI packages to do remote installs on our machines and I need to be able to save changes without touching these machines.  Having a console that lists all computers on the network and allows you to manage their SteadyState settings would be nice.  Ideally, I could remote wake them all, install whatever I need to,  save changes, and shut them down all from my office. 

     

    There are also many computers that have special ed hardware/software that require a partition that is not "frozen".  Is there a way to leave one folder on the C drive "unfrozen"?  Deep Freeze allows us to create a T drive partition that borrows empty space on the C drive.  This T drive retains all changes all the time while the C drive wipes out all changes after a restart.

     

    One last question.  Lets say I change the ntfs security to disallow access to the sctui utililty.  Could a student install the toolkit at home, save the sctui.exe file to a flash drive, then unlock a computer at school using the copy on their flash drive?

    Wednesday, October 31, 2007 5:55 PM

Answers

  • Question
    Sign in to vote
    0
    Sign in to vote

    Hi Mike,

     

    #1. Saving changes remotely to multiple computers.

    ------------------------------

    Using scripts, we can switch to different mode of Windows Disk Protection (WDP) to save changes or discard changes. In the new version of SteadyState which will be released soon, we can also turn on/off WDP remotely.

     

    Three modes of SteadyState WDP: (For more information, you can refer SteadyState Handbook)

     

    Remove all changes at restart.

    Retain changes temporarily.

    Retain all changes permanently.

     

    For more information about the API for the WDP feature, please refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

    938335 Description of the API for the Windows Disk Protection feature in Windows SteadyState

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;938335

     

    #2. Listing all computers on the network and allow to manage their SteadyState settings.

    ------------------------------

    Not available in SteadyState.

     

    #3. Leaving one folder on the C drive “unfrozen”

    ------------------------------

    WDP will monitor the whole system drive, thus, we cannot configure a exception folder on C drive. However, You can save files or user profile on another partition.

     

    #4. Will SteadyState run from a flash drive?

    ------------------------------

    It depends on the restrictions you have configured. If you have the following SteadyState Restriction enabled, programs from another location will not run. However, if your shared user is an administrator group member, the trick you mentioned may work.

     

    [Windows Restrictions\General Restrictions\"Allow only the programs in Programs Files and Windows folder to run”]

     

     

    Considering your requests, SteadyState may not be suitable for your environment. Based on the design of Steadystate, it provides administrators with an effective way to restrict user accounts, especially for a single shared computer or for a small environment of shared computers. However, when administrators want to centrally manage restrictions across many computers or users, we recommend that you set restrictions by using Group Policies. Restrictions that are implemented by using Group Policies across a large number of shared access computers on a given site, domain, or range of organizational units are more efficiently administered than the restrictions that can be implemented by using Windows SteadyState.

     

    Best Regards,

    Thursday, November 1, 2007 8:24 AM