Hello and Welcome to the Windows SteadyState Community! We are excited about the release of Windows SteadyState ( v.2 of the Shared Computer Toolkit) and believe that you will find SteadyState to be a powerful and easy tool to help you manage networks of shared computers. This Community site is for you! Feel free to let us know how SteadyState is helping you or post any inquires. You are more than welcomed to respond back to any questions and for a more technical response, our online support engineers are also available. They typically respond in about two business days. We are working hard to ensure SteadyState is marketed in the best possible way; however, you can help! Please feel free to share this information with any online communities, organizations, and friends who you think may benefit from this product! Wed like to talk to you more about your ideas. Thanks again for your support and feedback --- please keep it coming!! The Microsoft Shared Access Team

I need to protect the hard drive for students at my high school but if an administrator logs in to the same computer I need hard drive protection disabled. Also, how are updates from wsus handled with hard drive protection turned on and for that matter virus updates. Phil Eichar

the issues are fixed now. It looks like those features be default are on and needed to be unchecked from set computer restrictions from the global computer settings in WSS. After the program is installed some setting are configured as default. The username and the shutdown button are nowconfigured as they should at least for my escenario. thanks

The organization I lead, the League of United Latin American Citizens, operates 56 technology centers throughout the United States (see www.lulac.org/ctc) serving low income communities that often do not have access to the internet. The centers are eached equiped with 10 relatively new Dell computers running Windows XP andMicrosoft Office and share a DSL connection through a broadband router and wired switch. We used Altirus cloning software (included free withDell computers)to create a clone on a special partition of the hard driveof the initial installation with the idea that the center staff could restore the system to its initial state simply by holding the F11 key down when rebooting. However, we have not been that happy with Altirus because the center staff do not seem to use it on a regular basis and when they do they have had problems with it. The Windows SteadyState software seems to be exactly what we need because it would restore the system after each restart. I am concerned a bit about some of the reports that the software slows the start times of the systems it is installed on, but I like the fact that you can schedule a time for critical system and antivirus updates automatically. In essence, it appears that once you get the software set up, the amount of time spent keeping the machines running effeciently will be greatly reduced. I am considering installing the software on all 560 computers that we have across the United States by creating two reference systems (one for each type of computer we have) with the software installed and cloning them. Then I would send our techs out to each location with the cloned software and install them on each machine. My concern is how Windows XP might behave with Sysprep because I have experienced problems with the cloning of OEM Windows XP installations because the cloned system will not take the key found on the Genuine Windows XP sticker glued to each computer for some reason. On the onther hand, perhaps Dell used a different type of license on the tech center computers becuase they cloned the systems prior to shipping them to us without a problem. It may be that the problem just crops up with machines sold for the consumer market which is what we used at our headquarters. Would the Microsoft Shared Access Team be willing to consult with our technicians so we can ensure that we have covered all our basis prior to initiating this effort? Given the scale of our installation (I believe we are the largest minority community technology center network in the country) I want to make sure we get everything right on the first pass to minimize the amount of time the techs will need to spend at each location. The only other problems we have experienced setting up these machines in the past is with the networked Dell printer that we gave each location, because for some reason we had to install the printer software on each computer after cloning even though the cloned referrence system had the drivers already installed. Perhaps your folks might have some suggestions on that as well but I have a feeling the problem was due to the changed TCP/IP address for the printer at each location. Thank you for your consideration. Brent Wilkes LULAC National Executive Director (202) 833-6130.