EWF in place of Deep Freeze for Home PC?

**migel628** · 02-18-2005, 09:28 PM

My family is a bunch of tards when it comes to using computers. I want them to be able to do their work, but not trash the OS in any way, so I was looking into getting Deep Freeze, but I was thinking that using the EWF from XPe could provide similar functionality.

I was looking through SFiorito's procedure on setting EWF up and came up w/ an idea...I was thinking of going w/ 3 partitions, a boot EWFed partition, a page-file partition, and a data partition. That way they can still have all the functionality of XP w/ limited accounts, but not be able to install anything that will stay w/o me doing it for them.

I think this could work, but I'm not 100%. If anyone has any ideas, then please toss them my way...

**SFiorito** · 02-18-2005, 10:20 PM

Sounds like a good idea to me. Just keep in mind that any writing made to the protected volume will take up memory. You should be fine since your protected volume will only be the OS, but a reboot a day may be necessary. Don't forget to change the location of the event log files and your browser cache to a writable volume.

**migel628** · 02-18-2005, 10:33 PM

Ahh, I hadn't thought of that. I'll keep that in mind when I do this & report back

Of course, I probably won't get to this until next weekend...

EDIT: Thinking more on this, I don't think I need the page-file partition. I think I could get away w/ just a 2 partition setup and have the page file be on the data partition...

**SFiorito** · 02-18-2005, 10:50 PM

Yeah, you're correct no need for a seperate volume for the paging file. Also, remember that some programs use the registry for storing configuration changes which means writing to the boot volume. You'd also want to disable Windows Update or at the very least not have it download anything, just notify you since it could potentially write a **** load of data to your OS volume (unless someone knows of a way to change the download dir).

**migel628** · 02-18-2005, 11:14 PM

I figure I'll just update (windows, AV...) the system each week, but in theory I really shouldn't have to, b/c most bugs would be flushed on reboot...

**IntellaWorks** · 02-21-2005, 06:33 PM

Well really you wouldnt need AV... because the boot volume is protected as well as the registry...

**SFiorito** · 02-21-2005, 07:37 PM

well, if it's a desktop system then I would still install an antivirus and keep it updated just because what happens if some spyware or virus is downloaded and then you commit the ewf overlay to install some software or make some system changes permanent?

**migel628** · 02-21-2005, 11:53 PM

I'm going to go on the assumption that the system is always at risk, but the weekly update process should work nicely...Thanks for the suggestions thus far