Tech Forum

The Church purchased licenses for the Faronics Deep Freeze product to be used in family history center computers in May 2007. I have not installed it on the computers because I was not familiar with its capabilities and effects on managing a computer system. I am just getting around to understanding how the product works and think I have a good enough understanding to test it on the first computer before installing on the remainder. I have read the documentation and taken the two recommended webinars online.


What I need from the community is some feedback on experiences with the product. More specifically I need to know experiences in setting up the configuration.

1. Was it straight forward or are there some challenges and issues that need to be resolved before installing?
2. Does the product really do what it says it does? Or are there some hidden issues?
3. How does it impact daily use of the computers? I am looking for difficulties that center volunteers will encounter that I need to educate them on.
4. Are there any recommendations about handling updates for other software on the computers?
5. Has there been any difficulties in making changes to the system after the product is installed?
6. The Church provides a quick setup (scripted install) that creates a standardized install and configuration. Is this a worthwihile method of installing and setup? Does this quick setup create configuration modifications that cannot be changed?

I can't provide a lot of help in Deep Freeze since I prefer to lock the machines down rather then burden the Church with more client licenses. But from what I've heard it does an excellent job. There may be some teething pains but I haven't heard of anyone regret installing it.

I have used Clean Slate on my computers with great success. It is cheaper than Deep Freeze and offers greater flexibility. Even better, their tech support is free. You can call them and they will walk you through whatever problem you might be having. You can find Clean Slate at www.FortresGrand.com . The fully functioning demo is free to download and try.

Hope this helps.

smarks51599 wrote:I have used Clean Slate on my computers with great success. It is cheaper than Deep Freeze and offers greater flexibility. Even better, their tech support is free. You can call them and they will walk you through whatever problem you might be having. You can find Clean Slate at www.FortresGrand.com . The fully functioning demo is free to download and try.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the information. Deep Freeze is a product for which family history centers do not have to pay. The bulk licensing has been done by the Church. The tech support for Deep Freeze is free also under the Church's bulk licensing. There are even on-line webinars.

Deep Freeze is employed on a large scale at the University I work for. I run it on Macintosh systems, but PC's are similar.

Deep Freeze basically freezes the state of the computer after installed and "frozen". It means that any changes made to the computer will be reset after a reboot. Its biggest and best use is for terminal systems that get used a lot but don't require any saved data (typical computer lab systems and internet kiosks for example). Deep Freeze has a thawspace feature that allows you to set an area on the drive that is "unfrozen" where people can save files etc (if deployed on faculty/staff office computers the typical thawspace would be the documents or home folder). Or you can keep whole partitions thawed if desired.

In essence it allows you to lock down a system, preventing any changes until you need or want to change it. Unlocking a system is as simple as bringing up the Deep Freeze control panel and authenticating and rebooting.

It is somewhat OS dependent, so if someone physically pulled the drive out and changed files that way without booting the OS it would not stop that.

I have three years working experience with it and it does have the usual quirks and bugs, but it does get the job done.

JKELogan wrote:I have three years working experience with it and it does have the usual quirks and bugs, but it does get the job done.

Please explain in detail what those quirks and bugs are. I have not found any yet.

slmsz20 wrote:Deep Freeze has a thawspace feature that allows you to set an area on the drive that is "unfrozen" where people can save files etc (if deployed on faculty/staff office computers the typical thawspace would be the documents or home folder). Or you can keep whole partitions thawed if desired.

Can anyone tell me how to set up the thawspace feature on Deep Freeze? We just installed it on our FHC computers, but it is wiping out/restoring the My Documents folder, which is annoying to patrons. We want patrons to be able to keep a copy of their files locally.

Do you do it from the Deep Freeze Server, or locally on each computer?

bcpalmer60 wrote:We want patrons to be able to keep a copy of their files locally.

You might want to think about that. Do you really want to be holding on to that information which could contain full legal names, birthdates and mother's maiden name for living people?

It might be wiser to advise the patrons that they need to keep their files on a flash drive. I wouldn't want them to get too comfortable in thinking that we'll always keep their files.

You might want to think about that. Do you really want to be holding on to that information which could contain full legal names, birthdates and mother's maiden name for living people?

It might be wiser to advise the patrons that they need to keep their files on a flash drive. I wouldn't want them to get too comfortable in thinking that we'll always keep their files.

Ah! Great point. Thanks. I'll make up signs for our computers.