Drive Vaccine's PC Return's Automated PC Return solution, drastically reduces computer maintenance, and is widely used to protect public access computers or shared computing environments, i.e. library public computers, school PC Labs, Internet cafes and training centers.
Drive Vaccine's PC Return's protection is invisible; users feel as though they have absolute control over the PC. Regardless of what the PC user may attempt to do, delete files, install software or even modifying registry settings, the PC's will return to their desired baseline settings everytime the PC's are restarted. Making the workstations perfectly configured and available for the next user.
Drive Vaccine's PC Return PC return on restart technology integrates Reboot & Return, a technology designed to keep computers fully functional and optimally configured. Other functionalities include:
Return on PC Restart or on Log-off
Return on Idle PC
Return on an hourly, daily or weekly schedule
Return while maintaining a "Freeze Space" (area to save files and folders from restoration)
Drive Vaccine's PC Return integrates Reboot-and-Return, a simple technology designed to keep computers fully functional and optimally configured regardless of what the PC user may do.
"Simply Reboot and access a fully functional PC. Everytime."
With Drive Vaccine's PC Return onboard - our public access PC's are easily Returnd on every restart, or end of cruise...
Will Smith, RCCL Onboard Technology
Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines International
PC Return - Reduce Computer Downtime.
Drive Vaccine's PC Return™ ensures workstation performance is at optimal levels by removing website cookies, spyware, temp files, viruses and unnecessary plug-ins; which cause system bottlenecks. Any infections to a "immunized" system are instantly eradicated - workstations are reverted back to their original configuration. Drive Vaccine's PC Return is widely used in many public access PCs and computing environment to ensure that PCs are perfectly configured and available, saving time, money and PC trouble. With Drive Vaccine's PC Return you can...
Return PC's to Baseline on every Reboot
Return PC's to Baseline on every Log-off
Return PC's to Baseline on Idle time (no mouse or keyboard input for xx minutes)
Return on an hourly schedule
Return on a daily schedule
Return daily on first startup of day
Return on a weekly schedule
Automatically accept OS and Anti virus updates
Return while maintaining persistent data using Drive Vaccine's PC Return's "Freeze Space"
Drive Vaccine's PC Return® Highlights
Drive Vaccine's PC Return significantly reduces PC trouble shooting, repairing and restoring time to seconds!
Empowering PC support personnel to achieve tremendous savings of time and money on maintaining their computers.
Drive Vaccine's PC Return doesn’t impact performance
Can be remotely managed and deployed (Enterprise console)
Drive Vaccine's PC Return™ baseline snapshot takes less than 1% of total hard disk space.
Takes less than 3 seconds to update the PC's baseline.
Creates a new baseline without having to restart the PC.
Easily back out of a failed Software/OS or Anti-virus update.
Incorporates "Freeze Space" - a predefined area where files can remain persistent during restoration.
Highly configurable interface - hide program interface (stealth mode) from end users.
Offers flexible and powerful access control.
Supports Multi-boot PC's
Supports VM Ware
Consists of multi-partition protection selection.
Incorporates quick update of system baseline.
Offers detailed program operation logging.
Supports all industry standard deployment options.
Includes configuration during installation. Customizes the program upon installation.
Technology administrators use Drive Vaccine's PC Return to significantly reduce workstation maintenance. Drive Vaccine Drive Vaccine PC Return Returns systems to a baseline configuration. As a result, workstations can operate flawlessly for their entire life cycle. With Drive Vaccine's PC Return; technicians no longer need to perform rudimentary images or provide trivial workstation configuration support due to software or driver conflicts. This allocates more time for technical professionals to deal with more significant IT issues.
Drive Vaccine's PC Return PC Return is flexible and can be used to protect PC's in many different ways, and solves most public access PC related issues...
Set Acceptable User Policies
Put in force AUP's by guaranteeing that only approved applications are installed. When protected, Drive Vaccine's PC Return will not allow configuration changes or installation of any applications to remain on the workstations. This, in effect, blocks the installation of most illegal or unauthorized software.
Enhance The Computing Experience
Drive Vaccine's PC Return does not restrict access and is transparent to users, giving them complete control of the machine and thereby enhancing the end user's experience - Giving them the ability to utilize complete system resources.
Drive Vaccine's PC Return has a small, efficient footprint and takes up very little system resources, allowing your computers to perform at their optimum.
Eliminate Public Computer Downtime - Increase Total Cost of Ownership
Creative students, inexperienced staff or intentional hackers are all profiles of a public workstation user, typical of most computer labs, libraries and universities. Drive Vaccine's PC Return provides all user profile types with the same unrestricted system access. Regardless of what modifications or damages are made; all system settings, and applications are Returnd to original configurations upon restart. Thereby allowing user to make more use of workstations availability.
By minimizing workstation maintenance, administration time and troubleshooting - Drive Vaccine's PC Return reduces the total cost of ownership.
Virus, Malware and Identity Theft Protection
Drive Vaccine's PC Return also provides robust virus protection. A simple reboot eliminates Trojans, worms and most viruses before they have time to execute or attack the system..
Users in a public access setting are susceptible to falling prey to identity thieves. Some may attempt to pre-install a key logger or some dangerous spy ware application. Other bandits may attempt to view your history, temporary files or worse - Your completed forms, which may contain personal information, user names, passwords etc. A system immunized by Drive Vaccine's PC Return insures users - that no information or installed applications remain. Drive Vaccine's PC Return erases any installed application, history settings, logs and temporary files from remaining on the public access workstation so your privacy is protected and personal information is not cached and saved on the system for prying eyes to see.
Enterprise Level Network Administration
The Drive Vaccine's PC Return client is a software application that is setup onto each PC that requires Drive Vaccine Baseline Return Software protection. The Drive Vaccine's PC Return Client is the only application that is required to be installed on stand-alone PC's or PC's that do not require remote network management capabilities. For large networks that require remote administration your organization may use our Drive Vaccine's PC Return Enterprise Console (RMC).
Drive Vaccine's PC Return offers an additional Enterprise console for Drive Vaccine's PC Return - enabling administrators to configure all of the Drive Vaccine PC Return client installations over a enterprise level remote management console. Simplifying the workload of the network administrator while providing all client-based functions on a remote console.
Features
Support for Windows 2000, XP, VISTA, Windows 7
Custom setup options
Advanced Setup with program configurations
Advanced Setup Configuration Wizard (ASCW)
Deploy with network shares
Deploy with client side scripts
Deploy with server side deployment software
Deploy with Windows active directory
Deploy with Ghost system images
Return system from local sub O.S.
Return system from local Windows
Return system with batch files
"Freeze Space" for files/folders to be saved and not deleted on Returns
Disable access control (password protection)
Built-in administrator account
Return system on restart
Return system on log off
Return system on a one time schedule
Return system on a daily schedule
Return system on a weekly schedule
Return system on a monthly schedule
Create a new baseline from the local sub O.S
Create a new baseline from local Windows
Create a new baseline with a batch file
Create a new baseline after Windows or Anti-virus updates
Formally known as Norton Ghost, Symantec Ghost® is the most popular computer system backup and imaging software. It allows users to make a copy of the entire system to an image file. The file can then be stored on CDs or network servers. In a case of disaster recovery, users can Return the image back onto the computer. The solution offered by Symantec Ghost is a slow solution, it takes several minutes or longer in most cases to create or Return the image file. The Ghost solution is a costly solution, the image file might be as large as the system itself or half of the system size in compressed format; However, compression takes a big toll on Return time. The Ghost solution is also a partial solution. Due to the amount of time and space required to create image files, it is impossible for users to create frequent backup image files. Therefore, in a case of disaster recovery, users are most likely to Return back to the date of initial P.C. setup condition. All the programs, files and data created afterwards are permanently lost.
Rapid Return is the latest system recovery solution provided by IBM (now Lenovo) with their new PCs in attempt to replace the OEM recovery CDs. The software reserves a portion of the hard disk space to store a complete factory release image of the system. The reserved disk space is programmed as a hidden partition, inaccessible to most common users; however, an experienced user can remove the hidden partition easily. And thereby, leave the system unrecoverable. As a system imaging software, Rapid Return shares the same deadly weakness with Symantec Ghost; it is only a partial solution. In a case of disaster recovery, users are set back to the initial factory release condition. All the programs, files and data created afterwards are permanently lost. Rapid Return is also not rapid, as its name implies.. It takes many minutes to Return a system.
The hard drive recovery card was introduced over 25 years ago by many hard disk recovery card manufacturers in Asia. The Recovery Card was designed to protect PC hard drives from inadvertant user changes as well as automating the maintenance of PC's. Essentially these recovery cards maintained a consistant PC configuration on every restart... Initially, the primary difference between Return cards and recovery based software was, that on the recovery cards the software (firmware) is hard coded onto the actual card. In fact Drive Vaccine's PC Return's birth originated as a hardware based recovery card. Many current hard drive recovery card manufacturers use the hardware card as a simple "dongle", as software piracy is still quite rampant in many developing countries. Read more about recovery cards at our corporate website.
Products under this category include Clean Slate (fortres grand), Drive Shield, D**p Fr**z*, Sandbox, Smartshield, safeshield, HDD Sheriff and many others. These types of products deliver a basic "Return on Reboot". These solutions works deep within the hard drive and OS drivers and freezes the PC's settings. Technically speaking, its technology is based on a hard disk sector filtering technique. These solutions reserve a portion of the hard disk space for redirecting the disk I/O commands. It allows users to keep the information in the protected space during restarts. It takes significantly less amount of space than the conventional imaging approach. Therefore, the time to Return is much less than Ghost or Rapid Return. Everything seems ideal so far, until you need to make system updates. For this to happen you need to turn off protection, reboot and then perform your system updates (Windows critical updates, Anti-virus etc.) During these updates, there is no turning back. These methods of updates "Ratchet" the PC's forward with the updates. However, if your critical update causes your existing applications to crash, there is no way to go back. Reboot and Return is an all-or-nothing proposition. This significant weakness has drove Reboot to Return solutions away from advanced educational and corporate IT departments. Until recently "Return on Reboot" technology was mainly valued as the primary solution for the publicly shared PC markets. Drive Vaccine Automated PC Return Software takes this basic concept and adds more powerfull features taking public access computer protection to the next level.
Windows Sandbox (formerly Shared Computer Toolkit) is a discontinued freeware tool developed by Microsoft that gives administrators enhanced options for configuring shared computers, such as hard drive protection and advanced user management. It is primarily designed for use on computers shared by many people, such as internet cafes, schools, libraries etc.
Sandbox was available until December 31, 2010 free of charge from Microsoft for computers running Windows XP and Windows Vista. A 64-bit version was not currently available. Windows Sandbox was incompatible with Windows 7.
A Sandbox SmartShield is a testing environment that isolates untested code changes and outright experimentation from the production environment or repository, in the context of software development including Web development and revision control. Sandbox SmartShielding protects "live" servers and their data, vetted source code distributions, and other collections of code, data and/or content, proprietary or public, from changes that could be damaging (regardless of the intent of the author of those changes) to a mission-critical system or which could simply be difficult to revert. Sandbox SmartShieldes replicate at least the minimal functionality needed to accurately test the programs or other code under development (e.g. usage of the same environment variables as, or access to an identical database to that used by, the stable prior implementation intended to be modified; there are many other possibilities, as the specific functionality needs vary widely with the nature of the code and the application[s] for which it is intended.)
The concept of the sandbox (sometimes also called a working directory, a test server or development server) is typically built into revision control software such as CVS and Subversion (SVN), in which developers "check out" a copy of the source code tree, or a branch thereof, to examine and work on. Only after the developer has (hopefully) fully tested the code changes in their own Sandbox SmartShield should the changes be checked back into and merged with the repository and thereby made available to other developers or end users of the software.
By further analogy, the term "Sandbox SmartShield" can also be applied in computing and networking to other temporary or indefinite isolation areas, such as security Sandbox SmartShieldes and search engine Sandbox SmartShieldes (both of which have highly specific meanings), that prevent incoming data from affecting a "live" system (or aspects thereof) unless/until defined requirements or criteria have been met.
Sandbox SmartShield Technology can revert a computer to a previously stored state every time it reboots, or on administrator's request. When Windows Disk Protection (WDP) component of Sandbox SmartShield Technology is turned on, changes to the hard disk are redirected to a temporary cache. WDP offers three modes of protection:
Discard mode: The cache is cleared upon every reboot, thus returning the system to its previous state.
Persist mode: Changes saved in the cache remain intact across reboots. An administrator may later opt to commit these changes. Alternatively, at the specified date and time, the cache expires and its contents are cleared.
In computer security, a Sandbox SmartShield is a security mechanism for separating running programs. It is often used to execute untested code, or untrusted programs from unverified third-parties, suppliers and untrusted users.
The Sandbox SmartShield typically provides a tightly-controlled set of resources for guest programs to run in, such as scratch space on disk and memory. Network access, the ability to inspect the host system or read from input devices are usually disallowed or heavily restricted. In this sense, Sandbox SmartShieldes are a specific example of virtualization.
Commit mode: Contents of the cache is written out to disk and become permanent. In addition, new changes to the system are no longer redirected to the cache.
Sandbox SmartShield can also prepare user environment. User accounts can be locked or forced to log off after certain intervals. A locked account uses a temporary copy of the user's profile during the user's session. When the user logs off, the temporary profile is deleted. This ensures that any changes the user made during his session are not permanent. The user's session can also be limited to a specified duration, or logged off if idle.
Sandbox SmartShield Technology provides simple control of more than 80 restrictions covering both individual users as well as the system as a whole. Many of these settings are based on Windows' Group Policies, while others are implemented by Sandbox SmartShield software itself. Using Sandbox SmartShield software, an administrator can forbid a user from performing actions that may be undesirable for that environment. Some settings include the ability to turn off the control panel, disable registry editing tools, disable the command prompt, and stop the user from executing batch files or programs not in the windows or program folders.
Computer settings can also be applied. Since Sandbox SmartShield software would normally remove any Windows updates or security patches installed, Sandbox SmartShield software can be configured to check for and apply updates in a manner that they will not be removed upon rebooting. Administrators can also choose to make other system-wide changes, such as disabling the welcome screen, removing the shutdown dialog from the logon screen, and hiding the built-in Windows Administrator account.
The administrator can block access to specified programs on a per-user basis. Sandbox SmartShield software presents a list of programs found in the Program Files directory of Windows and on the common desktop. Programs from other locations can be added manually.
Discontinuation of Windows Sandbox SmartShield software and Alternative replacements
Microsoft has discontinued Sandbox SmartShield software. After December 31, 2010, Sandbox software will no longer be available for download. Support for Windows Sandbox software will be available until June 30, 2011 through Microsoft Support website.
Shared computers are usually found in schools, Internet and gaming cafés, libraries, and community centers. Owners, teachers, or nontechnical personnel frequently must manage shared computers in addition to their many other responsibilities.
Managing shared computers can be difficult, technically challenging, time-consuming, and expensive. Moreover, without system restrictions and protections, users can unintentionally change the desktop appearance, reconfigure system settings, and introduce unwanted software, viruses, and other harmful programs. Repairs to shared computers that are damaged in this manner can require significant work.
User privacy is also an issue for shared computer environments. Shared computers frequently use shared user accounts that make Internet history, saved documents, and cached web pages available to later users.
Windows Sandbox software was created to provide an effective way to help defend shared computers from changes by untrusted users and unwanted software installations and to help safeguard system resources.
After December 31, 2010, Windows Sandbox software will no longer be available for download. Microsoft will continue to provide support for Windows Sandbox software until June 30, 2011.
After June 30, 2011, support will be limited to the resources that are listed in the "Related Resources" section of this article.
Windows Sandbox software Features
Windows Sandbox software includes the following features to help you manage shared computers:
Getting Started – Getting Started provides steps to help you use Windows Sandbox software the first time.
Windows Disk Protection – The Windows partition contains the Windows operating system and other programs. Windows Disk Protection helps protect the Windows partition from being changed without administrator approval. You can set Windows Disk Protection to remove all changes upon restart, to remove changes at a certain date and time, or to keep changes.
If you decide to use Windows Disk Protection to remove changes, changes that shared users make when they are logged on to the computer are removed when the computer is restarted or at the date and time you set.
User Restrictions and Settings – User restrictions and settings can help improve and simplify the user experience. You can restrict user access to programs, settings, Start menu items, and options in Windows. You can also lock shared user accounts to make sure that changes are not retained from one session to the next.
User Account Manager – User Account Manager lets you create and delete user accounts. You can use this feature to create user accounts on alternative drives that will keep user data and settings even when Windows Disk Protection is turned on. You can also import and export user settings from one computer to another. This saves valuable time and resources.
Computer Restrictions – Computer restrictions control security settings, privacy settings, and other settings. For example, you can use this feature to prevent users from creating and storing folders on drive C and from opening Microsoft Office documents from Internet Explorer.
Schedule Software Updates – Use this feature to download and install the latest software and security updates on your shared computer when it is most convenient for you and for your shared users.
System Requirements
Supported operating systems:
Windows Vista
Windows XP
Windows Vista Enterprise
Windows Vista Business
Windows Vista Ultimate
Windows Vista Home Basic
Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Starter
Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Windows XP
Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Tablet PC Edition
Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2)
Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3)
The following resources will continue to be available after June 30, 2011. For more information about these resources, click the following link for the resource.
Windows Sandbox software Readme File
Windows Sandbox software Forum
Windows Sandbox software Technical FAQ
Windows Sandbox Handbook
Although Steady State is discontinued, it is still possible to prepare a shared computer using Windows 7 native features and support tools. To that effect, Microsoft has published Creating a Sandbox by Using Microsoft Technologies on Microsoft TechNet library.
Third-party alternatives to Windows steady state, such as Drive Vaccine, RollBack Rx are widely utilized.
