[063206]

Hi all,

I have a Dell 1420 running Vista. All along i have been using Deep Freeze to 'protect' my system for the installations of games or anything that can be installed. So in any case that the game does not work, i simply restart the computer and all will be good. The reason for this is that, i do not want to take any chances of the game leaving traces of itself in files and the registry.

So my problem, Microsoft released SP 1 for Vista so i thought i might do a windows update which i haven done for quite some time =/. I disabled Deep Freeze and 'thawed' my machine and continued with the update. After restarting, after completion, i realised that my Deep Freeze tray icon had disappeared. Whats worst is, it enabled itself and went into 'frozen' mode. With Deep Freeze active and no tray icon, i knew that i HAD to reload my OS. Now reloaded and naked, i am afraid of using Deep Freeze again as its too much of a hassle. After some reading at this forum, i realised that DF has some conflicts with nVidea IDE drivers or Raid or things alike. And i Do have a nVidea 'thing goin on'.

SO(after all my ranting), do you guys have a recommendation for something like DeepFreeze but with more flexibility? I have tried Norton GoBack. Quite good but its restore points are limited to the harddisk space. Too much disk writing will cause its restore points to disappear.
Need something with permanent restore points. Free program would be best although telling how good a certain paid product is will provide more insights.

Thank you for reading my long post and thank you for replying.

[Elvandil]

There are a lot of things out there with varying degrees of function and simplicity. A virtual operating system is a possibility.

You might want to take a look at Acronis True Image 11. It has a "Try & Decide" feature that allows you to run your whole system in a virtual mode, and then, unlike DeepFreeze, decide what changes, if any, you want to keep permanently, the idea being that you can "try" new programs, drivers, and so on, and then "decide" if you want to keep them or revert your system to the way it was. Besides that, it can also create an image of your system that can be restored at any time.

Virtual systems are another possibility. You can install a regular OS and then run another in a virtual mode (www.virtualbox.org, VMWare, Parallels Workstation, Virtual Iron, Virtual PC, Virtualozzo, etc.). Then you can make occasional snapshots of the virtual OS and revert to them any time you want.

[Plantsman]

You must be using an older version of Deep Freeze. Download the latest version and tell Faronics about the problem. There is a fix and the details are below. I could post the necessary file but I don't think that is allowed on the forum but faronics will post the fix to you. Here are the steps to remove Deep Freeze in frozen mode without the needed file.

1) Unzip
DEEPFRZ.ZIP to a floppy or a USB Key disk. The file name will be
DEEPFRZ.SYS. If you are using a USB key, you need to insert it before
booting the Vista CD.

2) Boot the computer to the Windows Vista installation CD. You should see a
prompt when the machine starts up saying Press Any Key to Boot to CD.
Press any Key.

3) You will see the 'Loading Files' screen and then the Graphical "Install
Windows" screen will appear. Select the appropriate language and input
preferences and then click the Next button.

4) At the next screen you will see the options to Install Windows, What to
Know before Installing Windows and Repair your computer. Choose the
option to 'Repair your computer'.

5) The next screen will present a list of Windows installations on the hard
drive which can be modified or repaired.

If there are no entries in the list you will need to click the Load
Drivers button and provide the drivers for Disk Drive Controller.

Click on the appropriate entry in the list and then click the Next
button.

6) At the Choose a Recovery Tool screen, click on the Command Prompt text.

7) You may be asked to authenticate as the local Administrator. You will
need to know your local Administrative password.

8) You should end up at the X:Sources directory. Enter the following
commands to install the recovery module.

"C:"
"CD \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS"
"COPY <drivepath>DEEPFRZ.SYS ."

Enter each command as shown above without the quotation marks and press
enter after each command.

Drivepath = the Drive letter and Path where the DEEPFRZ.SYS file is
located.

If DEEPFRZ.SYS is on a USB key, you will have to find the drive letter
that has been assigned to that USB key. You can do this by typing:

"DIR (driveletter):\"

This is to see if that drive exists and if that drive has been assigned
to your USB key. For example, type

"DIR D:\" (without the quotation marks)

to see if the D drive exists and if it does, whether or not you see
the DEEPFRZ.SYS file located there. If the D drive does not exist, then
try another letter. This example assumes you put the DEEPFRZ.SYS file at
the root level of the USB Drive.

9) You should get an overwrite message. Press Y to accept the change.

10) Type EXIT to end command prompt and then click the Restart button to
Start the computer normally. You should now be able to uninstall
Deep Freeze.

11) To uninstall Deep Freeze, run the same program you used to install Deep
Freeze to uninstall it. The machine will reboot when the uninstall is
complete.

12) You should delete any files called C:\Persi*.* or
C:\$Persi*.* or C:\0Persi*.* and also remove the
C:\Program Files\Faronics folder.

13) You should also clear out the Windows Temp (C:\WINDOWS\Temp) folder as
well as the user profile temp folder (please note that this is a hidden
folder).

A quick way to access the user profile temp folder: open up a Windows
Explorer (Windows Key+E), clear out the address bar and type "%temp%"
(without the quotation marks). Clear out everything in the user profile
temp folder that appears.

[Squashman]

Returnil
http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/
Windows Steady State.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...s/default.mspx

[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by Squashman

Returnil
http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com/
Windows Steady State.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/pro...s/default.mspx

That's another good one. I have it on my desktop but haven't tried it yet. But it looks like it has potential.

I haven't used any recent versions of DeepFreeze, but I use it primarily on machines I set up for toddlers. Game scores and so on are lost, but they are so young, they don't mind restarting the game each time.

And I suppose it would be very useful in an internet kiosk or something so that users could do whatever they wanted and a reboot would clear it all up.

But I found the need to reboot and "unlock" DF each time I wanted to make any changes a real pain. Maybe recent versions have changed that.

[1002richards]

Hi,
Also consider Sandboxie (freeware) as is Returnil - I use both on different machines.

http://www.sandboxie.com/

Richard.

[Plantsman]

Faronics has another product beside Deep Freeze called Anti-Executable which at installation time creates a whitelist of all programs found on your computer and from then on prevents any which may try to install themselves without your knowledge ( all the bad stuff). You can also disable it on the fly without rebooting when you want to install something, you can also add or subtract to the whitelist as you prefer. This sounds like a very good alternative for those who dislike the inflexibility of Deep freeze . Haven't tried it yet but I'm thinking of making the switch and see how well it performs. If it's as iron clad as Deep Freeze that will suit me fine.

[Elvandil]

Yes, I suppose. But there are plenty of other things that do that already, like most firewalls or other monitoring software like Winpatrol.

[yipee2]

You should perhaps try Rollback Rx Professional from Horizon. It works well for me and has saved my *** multiple times.

[Squashman]

Originally Posted by Plantsman

Faronics has another product beside Deep Freeze called Anti-Executable which at installation time creates a whitelist of all programs found on your computer and from then on prevents any which may try to install themselves without your knowledge ( all the bad stuff). You can also disable it on the fly without rebooting when you want to install something, you can also add or subtract to the whitelist as you prefer. This sounds like a very good alternative for those who dislike the inflexibility of Deep freeze . Haven't tried it yet but I'm thinking of making the switch and see how well it performs. If it's as iron clad as Deep Freeze that will suit me fine.

This one is free and works quite well also.
http://www.beyondlogic.org/solutions...ust-no-exe.htm

[CDATech]

Windows SteadyState is fantastic. I believe a version of Vista was on the way or it might already be out there. I've setup SteadyState on library computers and even my sons computer...it's a life-saver. I'd even recommend it on any high traffic PC. The family pc has steadystate on it as well. Quite the time-saver. These are however all XP machines.

[Squashman]

Originally Posted by CDATech

Windows SteadyState is fantastic. I believe a version of Vista was on the way or it might already be out there. I've setup SteadyState on library computers and even my sons computer...it's a life-saver. I'd even recommend it on any high traffic PC. The family pc has steadystate on it as well. Quite the time-saver. These are however all XP machines.

The Vista Beta is out.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

[063206]

Great help, thanks alot guys. Now i have a great array of programs to choose from. Thanks for all the recommendations!

Edit: Now i'm considering Acronis, Returnil and Sandboxie. Any cons to these programs? Lol, otherwise its quite a tough choice. Nvm even if acronis is a commercial product(a lil bias here =\). Which one would be the lightest on the system but still does its job?

After some reading, it seems that Sandboxie(free), like Returnil(free) will not be able to save the current session should i decide to keep the program that i juz installed but other than that they are the same. Did i get that right?

[Elvandil]

SanboxIE runs individual programs in a "sandbox" virtual environment--not the whole system. It's most appropriate for safe browsing, for example.

Not having used Returnil, I'll let someone else take that one.

[063206]

It seems that there are quite a number of ppl complaining about Acronis 11 not working with Vista and ending up with serious conflicts. This really discourages me from using it but it seems like a really good program.. Are this people doing something wrong or the program is flawed in certain ways?

Also, im curious. System Restore works similiarly in some aspects in comparison to this products right? Only that personal files are not restored