Admin Project help

[Ctwizzy]

Hi, Im currently co-oping during my school term, and am working in the technician/administrator division.

There are a lot of pc's that requre the same thing to be done to them.

Basically the pcs are locked down using Deep Freeze so that users cant change information. But when the systems need their anti virus software upgraded or windows update being done, the system have to be unlocked manually and each and every system done individually.

As you can probably imagine this takes forever. What I want to do is create an app that will allow me to

- log onto the pc as admin

- unthaw deepfreeze

- reboot

- download all windows updates

- antivirus upgrades etc

- do the neccesary reboots

- and then refreeze the system.

This way I wont have to sit at every computer and run do this all manually.

Problems I forsee

- not knowing how many restarts will be needed

- estimating one, as after all virus updates and windows update that needs 1 restart

- working with deepfreeze w/o user intervention

- sometimes multiple attempts of Windows Update is needed

- Will still have to go from system to system to run the app

Usually I have no problem coding, but thats because im a j2ee web developer and not used to application building. Though I cant see it being much more difficult. Just a little to learn.

So some advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

[tarquel]

Hi there

I know they use DeepFreeze on some of the public-based school systems - for me it serves no purpose when you use GP to its fullest.

Anyhow...

I would suggest doing it manually to one and imaging it after you've finished to the rest if they are all the same type and contain the same software.

I know this is no real help but I cant imagine that you're gonna find it easy to do - especially given the way deepfreeze works - but then again, anything & everything is possible hehe

Regards,

N.

[Ctwizzy]

Yes all are the same type and of the same software, but imaging would be a waste of time considering we need these systems all the time. The process only takes 10mins per machine, but when you do it 200 times thats 2000mins = 33hrs. Which to me is a lot of wasted time.

Plus each system would need minute configuration for itself. We do have a hardrive backup machine, which just replicated a HD but even this proves to spend just as much time as manually doing it.

Deep freeze is a pain, but its not my choice, I just work here. If anyone knows of a way of interacting with deep freeze via a programming language that would be handy, otherwise im stuck doing this manually lol.

Best soln I thought of tho not feasible at all, would be to just have terminals that all come from the same machine, and have their own instance of windows. That way its a patching of one machine for all. Sadly not every company considers these things when they buy their systems.

Thanks so far

[mattofak]

lol, well, see if they have sus installed, thats a way of applying the updates globaly, you could also create a script using xcopy to copy the updated antivirals to all the computers...

of course(ive not used deep freeze) this is providing that deep freeze will allow an admin to work on a system without having to disable deep freeze, and that you have access to the global profiles and the server hubs with admin privledges!

[Ctwizzy]

Deepfreeze will not allow an admin to work on it without unfreezing it.

Basically what I have to do is this: log on as admin, tell deepfreeze next boot is thawed. reboot pc log on apply updates reboot, check for more updates, if so reboot, if all done, freeze again and reboot, make sure its frozen, next pc.

A lot of rebooting to freeze/thaw. A giant pain but seems to the the only way so far. The pcs I do not think are on a LAN, so sharing is out of the question. Im pretty sure they are just connected to the central server. The room is a library computer lab, where users can just go to use the net and such. Deep freze exists so that users dont muck up the system and everything runs fine.

Im assuming there is no easy way to do this, other than the long tediusness of it.

Thanks anyways

[mattofak]

hmm, you should ask deep freeze themselves about this problem, they might be able to help you, send an email to support@faronics.com... i seriously doubt they could have created such an annoying product without some sort of admin easy multiple machines at once feature, rolls eyes at faronics!

[Ctwizzy]

Yeah, I e-mailed them hopefully they will have a solution to this problem. Be much easier if general users didnt treat the pc's in a library as their home machines and install a bunch of crap.

But we dont live in that world lol.

Thanks for your help guys. Ill keep you guys posted on what they said. Maybe the solution they give me can help someone else in the future as well.

[IcemanND]

depending upon the version of Deepfreeze you are using there are commandline executables to freeze and thaw the system. You can also schedule the machine to thaw/freeze at spcific times.

Unfortunately, there is no way to schedule windows updates to install without creating your own script after manually downloading them.

Virusscan should be much easier if you are using an enterpirse version of virusscan most of them will allow you to schedule the download and install of updates at a specific time.

[Ctwizzy]

UPDATE:

I have received an e-mail from the company, their support is quite fast and helpful. Quite unusual for a s/w company lol.

Thanks for the email. Most of the customers I have talked to regarding automating the virus updates are using the Scheduled Maintenance feature within Deep Freeze Professional or Enterprise in order to set aside a pocket of time when the program updates can be scheduled to run. Essentially, the Scheduled Maintenance feature is two reboot times; the first of which reboots the workstation with Deep Freeze disabled. The second reboot sets Deep Freeze back to the enabled mode. You could use the Windows scheduler to schedule the updates between these times and they would remain on the workstation after Deep Freeze was re-enabled.

In the latest releases of Deep Freeze Professional and Enterprise, the Scheduled Maintenance feature can be set to do Windows Updates automatically. You would simply set the Scheduled Maintenance times during the week and Deep Freeze would automatically restart into the "thawed" or unprotected state, install the Windows Updates available and then at the end of the maintenance time, restart back into the frozen state. During the maintenance time, we directly set the Automatic Updates control panel to "check for, download, and install any updates" while Deep Freeze is in the thawed state and would set it back to "Do not update this workstation - update manually" once the workstation booted back into the frozen state.

Also, if you are running Windows 2000 and XP, there is a feature which would allow you to map an unpartitioned part of the hard drive to a directory, making it "thawed". I have attached our white paper with regards to creating "Thawed" folders within the C: drive. The white paper deals specifically with Norton's Antivirus Corporate, and could be applied generally to any other application to exclude specific applications from Deep Freeze’s protection.

Our other whitepapers are available on our website at http://www.faronics.com/html/whitepapers.asp.

This proved to be very helpful. Just hoping we use either professional or enterprise versions.

Also here is a Comparison of the available versions of the software.

Hopefully this might help someone else, if they are experiencing problems with Deep Freeze them selves, or are pondering using the s/w.