Daily / Quick re-image software for Windows?

i think i may have heard something similiar but the reimage happens once a day after the school closes. its done over the network so minimal user intervention is needed.

actually a standard practice for a lot of schools since eliminating the ability to download info greatly hampered the usefulness of the computer so something had to be done to "fix" the computer after the person left so that basic operational standards were maintained.

now that there are so many large capacity removeable storage options available, there may be a movement towards not allowing downloads to the hard drive which would help eliminate most things.

i took a computer class at the local college that did the reimage thing daily trick and it was a hassle because one place i was going to required quicktime, so it had to be installed every day. pain...but that is the drawbacks of that type of system

 

The built in Restore function in Windows XP will take the computer back to a point of time of your choice.

My offices' computers limit the ability to download and/or install programs only to those with administrative privileges. Any computer running Windows 2000 or XP Professional can be configured with such limitations.

 

The automatic systems I have heard of are really done only on networks via the server.

The best bet for a single PC use would be to use something like Norton Ghost. He should use an admin account and set up a partition that would be only used to store the image. He should then deny access to the guest accounts for that partition. He would then boot from the Norton Ghost CD and have it restore the image from the partitioned drive.

Also, he could get a new PC complete with restore disks. This would require setting it up each time for accounts and logging onto the internet. But, if he only did it once a month it might not be to bad. He should set it up for automatic updates.

I would think Ghost would be easiest.

 

Use GHOST to dump an image of the hard-drive onto DVD.

I've been doing that for years. It's far less thrashing that jumping between partitions to read & write. And having the image burnt onto DVD+R is a guarantee that you are immune from hard-drive crashes and viruses. It's nice having older backups available too, just in case you discover you don't really want new software installed after the fact.

Also, the ability is use a USB or FireWire device for the captures & restores (and at high-speed too) is pretty handy.

 

Danny, what you described is a utility called Deep Freeze from a company called Faronics (www.faronics.com). Various departments over here at UNC use it for various purposes, for example for computer labs, public access kiosks or machines that get used heavily by unruly student employees. Using Deep Freeze you first install the software that gets delivered onto a separate machine and use it to build a custom installer package with the Deep Freze options that you want. You then build a workstation and configure it just the way you like, and then run the custom Deep Freeze installer that you created on it. Reboot, and the workstation is "frozen." Use it any way you like, have your users f*** it up as bad as they can, and once you reboot, all changes are undone and the machine is as if it had never been touched. Pretty sweet, if you ask me.

- Bill

 

Personally I have mine on DVD-R and 2 separate HD's. One on another PC dedicated to archiving my old images. If the DVD-R goes plop, I still have 2 backups. Then I just routinely backup my data. I also keep a firewire drive for immediate backups. Eventually I would like a terabyte of backup via a firewire that works with the push of a button.

 

This is exactly what we use at our school, and it's 100% student-proof. Once frozen, the machine cannot be modified by any means (so long as you disable booting from CDROM, Floppy, etc in the BIOS).

You can also set nice things like auto-reboot if the machine isn't used for a certain amount of time, or auto-reboot as soon as a user finishes a session.

This is much, much better security than manual re-imaging because if a hacker-type installs a key-logger (very possible these days), as soon as they log-out (or the session times-out) it's completely gone like it was never there.

Fully, 100% recommended!

Dave

 

Hi Danny,

I think you were looking at the corporate license area:

You can buy a single copy here:

http://www.faronics.com/html/order.asp

$30 US

You might also want to have them pick-up a copy of the anti-executable package (another $30). It prevents any non-authorized program from being started by a user.

If you install the anti-executable first, then lock the entire system with deep freeze, it's pretty much immune from anything happening to it.

Dave

 

Another package that's worthwhile looking at (beats the hell out of Ghost IMHO) is Acronis True Image.

http://www.acronis.com

It's a very nice package that comes in two-parts - a windows backup "client" that allows you to take a snapshot of an entire drive (or drives) in a scheduled fashion without having to shutdown or reboot your computer (it can do a full image backup in the background while you continue to work).

Then you use their software to create a bootable CD-ROM. The CD is Linux based, and starts a full user-friendly graphic interface that you can use to backup/restore or manage images. The Linux drivers include just about everything you can think of - Firewire drives, USB drives, internal SATA and IDE controllers, etc. You can also use it to copy partitions between drives and such (if you're upgrading/changing HDs).

It also has an option to create a "rescue partition" on the HD - a hidden partition that windows can't see. If your system crashes, you just press F11 while booting to get to a recovery interface to restore your drive completely.

I had nothing but problems with Ghost, but Acronis has worked flawlessly. For $50, it's money well-spent and has saved me a ton of time performing maintenance on computers for friends and family.

Dave

 

Kudo's for the Deep Freeze., totally student proof, Nederland Independent Schools, in Ned Tx has used this for ALL schools, 7500 + students, including 2000 middle schoolers, 3500 high schoolers, and not one yet has figured out or defeated this system. Basically it has made life for a teacher heavan compared to what we dealt with before. Once installed and set, the user can change all he or she wants., but once the machine is re-started or re-booted all the changes go. This environment is totally customizable and cheap for individual licenses. It's great and SIMPLE.

 

I've used PowerQuest (now owned by Symantec) product Drive Image for aboout 6 years to maintain a PC test lab. Backs up images like Ghost and the other products mentioned. About $60.

Extremely reliable, but I haven't worked with the other products mentioned, so I can't compare.

This sounds to me like a reliable, practical solution for your friend; and the cost is only the software, and perhaps an external hard drive if he wants to keep the original "source" image seperate.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Aug 1 2005, 04:18 PM) [snapback]112426[/snapback]</div>

And it saved me too! That software purchase really paid off... so much so, I'm posting this same message as found in another thread, since follow-up of this nature is far from common, especially a year and a half later like this...


Yesterday, my 5-year-old hard-drive (yes, the one responsible for almost my entire website) finally died from extreme age (I beat the tar out of the thing). It was a spectacular crush... quite dramatic.

Anywho, a day later, I'm back up and running as if nothing happened. My GHOST image was recent enough so only the most recent file changes were lost. And most of those I was able to recover using my external hard-drive and website.

And of course, there's the benefit of this new hard-drive being bigger & faster. Norton's software simply allowed me to restore the image on it. No big deal. Pretty painless.