Student sandbox machines

[TechMonkey]

Apparently next year students must be able to fiddle with windows and carry out tasks such as change control panel options and uninstall programs. No way in any dimension taht is happening on the live network so the first thought that came to mind is VMWare. The only worry I have is sending around a package that has a full copy of windows in it contained in it and the associated network traffic! I tried using a VMWare as a remote host but that seems to attach everyone to the same image so what one does everyone sees. Sending the xp image around is no big deal I guess if it has to be done but I was wondering if anyone here has set up something similar?

 

Ta

[strawberry]

i use virtual pc and put the vhd file on a partition of the local machine.

 

useful link - http://www.edugeek.net/forums/thin-client-virtual-machines/20340-virtual-pc-console-settings.html

Edited June 18, 2008 by strawberry

[fafster]

Use Virtual PC and put the image on a read-only network share that's near the machines?

[Quackers]

Could use disk protection from the Shared Computer Toolkit, does not matter what they do to the computer, reboot and all is back to normal.

[Dos_Box]

Virtual PC with the roll back options should do you. Then pupils can undo their mistakes instead of shouting for you!

[SYNACK]

Depending on your avalible space you could used a fixed/preallocated VHD so that the file size is the formated partition size. If you make it big enough 17GB+ then the image will not fit on anything smaller than a portable hard drive. It would at least make it more difficult to copy.

[Chris_Jones]

Same here - I've set up MS Virtual PC on one machine in each IT room and installed a basic copy of windows that auto logs in as admin, set the vhd to read only and enabled undo disks so that any changes they make can be erased.

[ArchersIT]

As with most of the others, we use VirtualPC and stick a VHD on the hard drive for them to use for this.

 

Jonathan