Stop it! It's not a virus!

[lwb]

I know this forum is rather dead, but I think I can help. There is this program my school uses called Deep Freeze. It prevents anyone from messing up the computers, because it saves the computer to an image and it will just dump new changes when it is restarted.

What I do understand about it: All of the students have to load their documents and saved things on a u-drive, kept in the server.
What I don't understand: How they handle updates. From what I can tell, they don't. (computers are at least 11 years old.)

Me likey Deep Freeze! It saves the IT dept at my school TONS of work.

As for updates, it can be set to automatically boot the computer (say at 2AM on a Saturday morning), install the updates and "refreeze" the system to not allow any more changes. We just don't bother, unless these's another reason the system is "thawed". Then, we update while we do the other work.

[Merriweather]

Why is it that the people who have to be led by the hand to do anything involving their computer, who can't move a file without yelling for help with it, are the very same people most likely to decide the don't use the files in the system folder and delete them all?

[Chromatix]

One of the good things about Ubuntu is that if you set it to automatically update, it only tells you if you need to reboot - and *after* it's installed the update.

Just sayin'.

[Pagan]

My dad's the opposite of this. He has a tendency to click on things he ought not to click on. Had to have his computer wiped once because of doing that.

In his defense, when he retired (WSMR, late 80's), they were still using punch cards to compile telemetry on missile tests.

[Cooper]

I know this forum is rather dead, but I think I can help. There is this program my school uses called Deep Freeze. It prevents anyone from messing up the computers, because it saves the computer to an image and it will just dump new changes when it is restarted.

What I do understand about it: All of the students have to load their documents and saved things on a u-drive, kept in the server.
What I don't understand: How they handle updates. From what I can tell, they don't. (computers are at least 11 years old.)

[Cazzi]

As far as the users afraid of the Automatic Updates, I assume your company is big enough to use WSUS

I use WSUS on my (rather complicated) home network

What? I'm not working currently... got to keep my hand in somehow!

So yes, doesn't have to be a large network to use that system.

[Squeaksmyalias]

Awwwww, hubby and I would be thrilled to meet you at a gun range with something that goes bang for you to borrow. Just pay for a box of cheap ammo, a target or two and your range fee and have fun. I have the cutest little Ivers Johnson in .22 that is a blast.

..............................Really? I've no experience with firearms....that would be interesting....should I be giggling and bouncing like I am?

[AccountingDrone]

Also it insulted my Mother and I want revenge, not to mention my friend is at Pennsic and isn't around to shoot it for me so a hammer will have to do. Btw (don't try this home, use a trained professional, Etc.) did you know a laptop will go boom and start on fire if it is shot? I learn the best things from former Airforce computer guys.

Awwwww, hubby and I would be thrilled to meet you at a gun range with something that goes bang for you to borrow. Just pay for a box of cheap ammo, a target or two and your range fee and have fun. I have the cutest little Ivers Johnson in .22 that is a blast.

[Squeaksmyalias]

Nope its a small company, at the moment there are *counts on fingers* 10 people in the building, plus one who is only in a few days a week, then three who work in another group's building therefore torture that group's tech (we send him alcohol of his choosing if anything bad goes down, yes we like to keep our tech people happily intoxicated, why do you ask? We also send over baked goods and other yummy snacks). With the small number of people we just pick a day and hop onto their computers while they are at lunch and make sure things are running smoothly, or in the case of the Omg it's doom! person we will hop onto her computer a lot more now to make sure things are running right, and to reassure her there is no doom, we are kicking ourselves for not doing it more before now. We schedule what we can, mostly for when they won't be sitting at the desk to poke at it and possibly turn it off, which has been a problem in the past. I hate when they go "It's slowing my computer down, I don't care if it's necessary." *click* bye bye task.

[Moon]

As far as the users afraid of the Automatic Updates, I assume your company is big enough to use WSUS (for the non-techie, that is a computer in-house that downloads the updates from MS and dishes them out to the individual computers at scheduled times and allows for review of the updates). Have you tried telling them that you have PERSONALLY approved each update that they receive?

[Kogarashi]

Maybe that mindset is why we have boxes of old letters we have inherited from older family members over the years.

Might be. "Gotta save it, might be important later for posterity or something!" I'll admit, I get a bit of that too on occasion. I inherited some of my mom's packrat tendencies. (Yes, packrat, not hoarder. We only save potentially useful stuff, and are able to go through periodically and pare down the collection, as well as actually use some of the stuff we've saved.) I recently went through a box of my old high school/college stuff that included a ton of letters between me and a cousin, me and a sister, etc. Tossed most of them because they weren't worth the scrapbooking/journaling time, though I did keep the very first valentine Hubby ever gave me (before we were dating).

[Ironclad Alibi]

She's terrified of deleting anything because it might turn out to be important later.

Maybe that mindset is why we have boxes of old letters we have inherited from older family members over the years. If I could only convince Mrs. IA to sort through them (they're from her family) and toss them some of them. Come to think of it, Mrs. IA doesn't even empty her email trash. Maybe I should check her recycle bin.

[Kogarashi]

My husband's grandmother is something of a technophobe as well. Her computer is about as old as currently possible (running Windows 98, I think?), and she's one of those folks who tends to use the recycle bin and her e-mail program's trash folder as "holding bins" instead of emptying them out regularly. She's terrified of deleting anything because it might turn out to be important later. I've had to try to un-break her e-mail program twice so far (it wasn't allowing her to delete e-mails anymore), and I highly suspect it's because each folder in the program, including the trash folder, has well over a thousand e-mails in it. She has stuff dating back to when she first got the computer, unless it was lost in a crash.

One of her children keeps getting her new gadgets, specifically newer phones, and everyone else in the family groans when it happens because invariably someone is going to have to walk her through all the shiny doodads and functions on the new phone when she really needs little more than phone+address book.

Thankfully we haven't had to un-break her stuff because she started deleting crucial items, so she's probably pretty good as a customer as far as that goes. And we all love her, which is the other saving grace.

[ArcticChicken]

Luckily, it turns out you CAN teach an old dog new tricks. My mom has mostly stopped calling me for tech support since I sent her this handy flowchart.

[Kaylyn]

I just explained to my sister this past weekend that the Y2K scare was over, and that, no, all of the computers on the planet are NOT in danger of syncronized spontaneous combustion (which is what she thought the Y2K thing was). She's been living in constant fear of the "Y2K computer explosion" since 1999.

Probably best you not let her know about the Year 2038 problem then...