Steadystate - found alternative, but are there others?

[hairlessupportmonkey]

http://www.steadierstate.com/

I have a customer who doesnt have a DC / SBS server etc, and all their workstations are just in a simple workgroup. this will not change, They have a Unix server for their day to day stuff (Insurance quotes)

Im about to do a desktop refresh for them and really wanted to keep these machines well managed. Steadystate would have been one nice way without creating local GPOs on all 16 PCs, but alas its no longer a supported product for Win 7.

Steadierstate seems like a nice idea, but I am not convinced this is the simplest way to do it - as a decent about of prep work would be needed. I know I could simply build one machine, image it, and blast that image across to all the other machines.

Ive had a good hunt around the interwebs but its all seems to come back to steadierstate style implementation of keeping the machines in a clean and decent state.

If anyone has any other good ideas, Im all ears!

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[linney]

Windows 7 XP Mode has settings for Undo concerning entries written to the hard drive (VHD) is that anything you can make use of?

Windows Virtual PC
Download Windows XP Mode

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/download.aspx

Windows XP Mode (Windows 7 only, but not any of the Home versions) "You are not eligible to download Windows XP Mode. You must have Windows 7 Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate to run Windows XP Mode".

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

Hi Linney,

Ive used XP mode around the timer 7 came out, useful for running older apps. Not quite what I had in mind. I think it would confuse the issue...

I think Ill have to harden up and do it as per steadierstate.

ACSS - SME
General Geek

 

[flyboytim]

Wioski

http://itpro.fi/asiantuntijaryhmat/tyoasemat/wioski/default.aspx

This may be worth a look.

A Free Finnish solution, which uses VHD boot technology to present the same standard Windows 7 (Enterprise or Ultimate) system to the user, and writes session changes and incremental data to a differencing disk.

Wioski is a self-healing kiosk-computer running Windows 7. The whole project is done with standard Microsoft technologies and is distributed totally free although you do need a license for the running OS itself. The downloadable Wioski is simply a wrapper that surrounds your own WIM-file of Windows 7 OS installing it on a VHD-file and using a differencing disk for writing incremental data. If you find the project useful or develop it further we would appriciate if you let the community know also. If you need any further assistance or consultation please contact me at sami(dot)laiho(at)sovelto(dot)fi.

 

[hairlessupportmonkey]

Interesting. looking at it now. cheers.

ACSS - SME
General Geek