System recovery by Hardware

[itskd]

Has anyone experience of using the Returnstar Recovery PCI cards?

I would think of using them in IT suites or even in Primary schools' classroom PCs as an easier solution than"Steady State" and cheaper than "Deepfreeze"

Edited January 28, 2012 by itskd
spelling mistake

[m25man]

Used a similar solution back in the Windows 95 Dark Ages when everything was Novell & nobody had any experience in translating NT4 Group Policies into a workable solution for classrooms, then came along Ranger & CC3 which was far more flexible and then Server 2000/2003 AD & GPs made them virtually pointless.

I still had around 50 "Saftey Cards" in stock when Vista came out and they became useless at that point.

 

For the Technically Inept I guess they may still have a use, Internet Cafe's were good candidates so small primaries with no technical support might find a use.

 

Having the HDD roll back to a default state at each boot however has other problems.

Updates don't get applied, unless correctly configured pc's would constantly re-download updates only to have them flushed on restart.

 

They worked really well Term by Term but we used to have a nightmare each holiday as each PC had to be booted individually logged in to allow disk changes, updates and software to be installed.

You quickly realise that on anything more than a few PC's at a time they can cost you more time than they are worth.

 

If you only have a small workgroup you might spend as much time configuring local policies and Ghosting machines any way, so these next gen cards might have an appeal to some.

The documentation and support on these Chinese solutions is sparse and sometimes non existent so bear that in mind.

[itskd]

"Having the HDD roll back to a default state at each boot however has other problems.

Updates don't get applied, unless correctly configured pc's would constantly re-download updates only to have them flushed on restart."

 

I had a feeling that the updates were going to be a problem; I guess someday a card with the possiblity of setting permission for system updates may become available

 

thanks again

[m25man]

I had a feeling that the updates were going to be a problem; I guess someday a card with the possiblity of setting permission for system updates may become available

 

Some already have this function, exclusion of certain files/folders/partitions but the level of input needed to make it work efficiently even in a primary school could be far too labour intensive for it to be of real use.

It makes the Multipoint system an attractive alternative.

[itskd]

It makes the Multipoint system an attractive alternative.

 

And Multipoint in this context is.....? Please?

[m25man]

Windows MultiPoint Server 2011 Home Page