Deep Freeze on Home Computer

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Has anyone had any experience putting Deep Freeze on a home computer?

The reason I ask is because I am fucking tired of fixing my parent's laptop which they find a way to run in to the ground with spyware and viruses on a nearly weekly basis.

Would an easier solution be to create a sub login with little to no access over the local drive or is it still prone to spyware/virus/whatever the fuck they seem to run in to all the time?

I would go in to more detail, but I am just on my way out to unclog whatever mess they've come up with this time around. I'd love to just take it away from them and tell them they're not bright enough to be on the internet but it' not a totally viable solution.

[Djinni]

damn, and I was expecting something to do with throwing the computer in the freezer.

Anyway, No I haven't used Deep Freeze myself, although I know of a couple of people who use programs similar to it, (basically starts the computer each day the way it was when it was first set up.) Which is great as long as you aren't going to be trying to save any documents or work on it, since everything not explicitly defined by the system administrator becomes volatile data and will be wiped upon shutdown/bootup.

[Hyland]

Cant you specify in Deep Freeze to keep certain documents? Like do not delete /users/whatever/downloads or /pictures?

Other than that they must be pretty talented to keep breaking it like that lol..

[Djinni]

Cant you specify in Deep Freeze to keep certain documents? Like do not delete /users/whatever/downloads or /pictures?

Other than that they must be pretty talented to keep breaking it like that lol..

Cant say as I haven't used the program myself, but I would think that kinda defeats the purpose of the reason your using it for. Since Viruses/Malware will typically reside in those folders not to mention the potential of them spreading to those folders and persisting through the daily reset.

[Hyland]

Yeah youre right Djinni, maybe just to the /documents or /pictures folder specifically. The appdata folder is a more common place for malware than those in my experience so it may still help.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

Yeah, I would likely set up documents to be the only safe haven for saving files but even then, I really just think I should put it on maximum lock down until they learn to use the shit I put on their for them to check for these problems or practice safer browsing habits.

This is where I finally get to return all that punishment they put on to me for not knowing any better when I would get in trouble.

[Newbie95816]

I've used Deep Freeze at home as well as in a school as tech. I would suggest you in making a separate partition for them to save their downloads, files, and etc to while freezing only the C:\ drive.

[Triggered Fridgekin]

So it seems they've picked up the sirefef.fy which, upon initial glance, makes me want to throw their laptop in to the river because of all the mucking around in the registry which I've never been a fan of doing.

There are some automatic tools out there but I question their legitimacy such as those found on cleanvirus.net.

Looks like I won't be having any fun for the rest of my evening.

[bals]

have you tried teaching them safe browsing habits?
watched them while they are browsing to let them know things they shouldn't be doing?

[Deleted]

Install Firefox and install adblock plus plugin and wont see dodgy sites again.

You could also install Comodo internet security free and use its secure DNS servers to stop any crap getting to the computer.

[sproket]

Do you ever wonder what kind of site your parents are visiting? Maybe they are really big porn freaks....just putting it out there to get that mental image in your head.

[Xuvial]

You can most definitely specifiy which folders/partitions/drives you want to Deep Freeze and which you want to keep editable. I could very much recommend putting your parents' PC under Deep Freeze and leaving a single external drive for storing data. The reason I say a seperate external DRIVE and not just a partition/folder, is because as long as they can save stuff to it, viruses/spyware can reside on it, and having to trawl through the drive figuring out where all the shit has accumulated is not fun.
So you would have C: drive under Deep Freeze, nothing will ever change on that, and an external D: drive for data which can be backed up if need be - if it fills up with bullshit you can simply re-format it (takes what, few mins?) and it's as good as new. Ta-da! Foolproof laptop for parents.

I have no experience in installing Deep Freeze myself, but I did work with a whole bunch of computers at my old institute (around 3 labs worth of "experimental" PC's) where you had full admin rights and could pretty much THRASH the operating system, core settings, install/remove whatever the hell you liked, play around with everything (all in the name of learning!)....and you simply had to hit the restart button to make it as good as new it was veeeeery handy because students would do all kinds of shit on those computers. It also meant those PC's never slowed down due to collecting registry garbage...like 4-5 years old and still as zippy as ever. Meanwhile all our data was safely stored on a remote network drive <3

[d3mmonul@yahoo.com]

My advice is to get 2 hdd's or just freeze the C:\ partition and let the other free for saving files and shit like that so you don't have to worry about viruses and things like that if the stuff gets really messy. Used deep freeze for many years but only in internet cafe's :|

[glo]

Install Linux with super limited access. Plop a link to Chrome or whatever on their desktop and be done with it.

[ayako]

@Op

What do they usually do on the computer?

I would suggest linux if they don't do anything that specifically REQUIRES windows that can't be run via vm/wine.