College Computer

Anthony · Post by **Anthony** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 9:09 am

I was amazed when I looked at the computers at my college and the desktops were :gasp: clean of an extra (student) installed programs. These computer are not locked down in the least bit, yet they remain clean. My HS had tons and tons of little extras and they were locked down pretty tight so I was quite I couldn't figure out what was going on... Just because your in College doesn't mean your going to be mature all of a sudden.

Then it hit me... The computers are re-ghosted each time they are rebooted

. I guess that deals with every single problem someone could possibly do to the computer. What's more they are reghosted from a network drive so even if you get something really bad on the HD you won't mess up the ghost image.

Quite clever if you ask me, but I have never heard of such a practice before let alone seen it be done. Do any companies do this? I know it could be kinda tuff to do on a business computer because of issues like saving things, but if you throw in a network drive to save to it really deals with this problem. The other problem is the 20 min boot time, but for a tech company because of security settings it might be taking that long anyways.

Any thoughts on this?

- (Being posted both at Big-O-Software and BTVillian.com)

fuuucckkers · Post by **fuuucckkers** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 11:48 am

Neat idea. But I wouldn't like it, if I had to deal with it.

harra · Post by **harra** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 11:52 am

Where I work they do this. You have to request "special" permission to have a computer that is not only unlocked, but also doesn't get restored from image with every reboot.

That is quite an ingeniuos way to handle it. Eventually people would get tired of re-installing their favorite apps and give up.

Anthony · Post by **Anthony** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:16 pm

... And when you need to add a company wide program you only have to do it one place. Sure it may take a bit longer (because you have to recompile the ghost image), but at maybe triple the time to do one location your saving large amounts of time if it is going on any more then 3 computers.

Also you only have to troubleshoot one computer if their is a hardware problem because their all the same. This in it's self will cut down on a lot of IT time, and make it worth whatever price it costs to put the system into place.

Timelessblur · Post by **Timelessblur** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:18 pm

Also they do it for collage because some time you neeed to install those extra program for web site or your own convenices witch helps out not having to clean them up ever

harra · Post by **harra** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:20 pm

Plus, a properly configured network could easily be administered. They could easily compile a new image, and then remotely tell every computer to reboot. THis would cause the new image to get pulled down. In our instance, the reimaging happens and then you get a login prompt. To the users, they would just be at a signin in the morning

Anthony · Post by **Anthony** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:22 pm

harra wrote:They could easily compile a new image, and then remotely tell every computer to reboot.

I hope it's not my computer I have been working at all morning with out saving that they remotely reboot

.

harra · Post by **harra** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:24 pm

PhaseDMA wrote:I hope it's not my computer I have been working at all morning with out saving that they remotely reboot .

If they follow that practice, it would most likely be at an extremely off-hour (middle of the night)

Timelessblur · Post by **Timelessblur** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:29 pm

They dont do that ghosting here at tech but a lot of our labs have software on them that makes sure you can not ghost there hard drive. Most of these labs though are control by either the engineering deparment or the architech and they make it very clear what you are not allowed to do even those they dont have much real secertiy on them just can not save to the HD

Anthony · Post by **Anthony** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:30 pm

Not being able to save to the HD should be enough security for any computer...

If it's not then your pretty much clearly breaking the law, because your doing things that the people that own the computer clearly don't want you doing.

Timelessblur · Post by **Timelessblur** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:33 pm

yeah. It still amazing what you can do. I have not gone the the Civil engineering lab but the rumor is they did put AIM on them.

The rule are no porn sites. that about it free rein where ever else we want to do on them though. But those computers are load up with seveal thosand of dollars of software. (math acad autocad 02 and 04 and all the add on for them extra)

Anthony · Post by **Anthony** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:38 pm

Several thousand dollars of software? Just have the pro version of Office lol...

Plasma2002b · Post by **Plasma2002b** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:43 pm

when i wrked at NetGamez (a local PC Cafe), we started out by having unprotected Win98 machines jsut all there..... that became a little too crappy fr the situation.

For example, Counterstrike is the main game played there.... and lets say somebody installs a hack on one of the machines..... well, he's cheating.... now when he leaves, he doesnt uninstall the hack. So the next person that comes to use the machine gets the stupid cheat on the machine and most of the time, they dont know how to fix it.... which makes us (employees) have to do the work.

It sucked..... so what we looked into was a technology similar to what your talkin about...... we used pc cards... (theyre called WDog, just search google if ya want). What they do is TOTALLY hide a partition on the hard drive from any system being able to see it at all. Now when ya boot up, it uses the hidden partition to boot, then it gets disabled and ya work off of the other partition. All files are ghosted from the hidden to the unhidden partition instantly.

Pretty damn nice, if ya ask me

It saved us hours on hours on redoing all the machines around there.

Moon Child · Post by **Moon Child** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 1:55 pm

harra wrote:
PhaseDMA wrote:I hope it's not my computer I have been working at all morning with out saving that they remotely reboot .
If they follow that practice, it would most likely be at an extremely off-hour (middle of the night)

Which, in the dorms would be a relatively stupid time to do it. Yes, there are fewer students in there at that time, but when it gets about halfway through the semester, you have a hard time finding a computer to work on at any time of day or night.

Anthony · Post by **Anthony** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:48 pm

Moon Child wrote:
harra wrote:
PhaseDMA wrote:I hope it's not my computer I have been working at all morning with out saving that they remotely reboot .
If they follow that practice, it would most likely be at an extremely off-hour (middle of the night)
Which, in the dorms would be a relatively stupid time to do it. Yes, there are fewer students in there at that time, but when it gets about halfway through the semester, you have a hard time finding a computer to work on at any time of day or night.

I won't ever have that silly problem

.

Brian - I know exactly what your talking about. Compaq/HP do this with their new computer.

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