SteadyState

Previously I've discussed about recovery from virus infected and crashed computers.For a pc that is being by many people the settings and other data are changed continously as per each user's preferences.Additionally the computer does get infected with viruses over time.Thus the person who's responsible for the pc has a lot to do (virus scans,changing settings,..) to keep the pc running smoothly.
There are simpler alternatives to the above.For example consider this software SteadyState.This will enable a the system administrator to remove the changes that've been made after a restart.There are many software like this one;the reason I chose this one is as an example is because its free and made by a well known company (Microsoft).
Now you would want to clarify a few points.I'll clear them up by answering a few questions:
1.Does this software remove changes from the all the drives?
A.No,only the changes made to the C drive are affected.

2.How about updating anti-virus software?
A.Start the computer,update the software and select save all changes on shutdown.

3.How does this work?
A.All the changes that are made to the C drive are saved on an image file present on the hard disk;thus the C drive remains the same.Then depending on user preferences the changes can be retained(saved to the C drive) or removed.

Usage:Turn on disk protection and then fix the size of the image file.This ensures that changes made to the C drive are saved to the image file.

 

Note:The option do not warn admin about changes should be not selected to get the retain/remove changes message before shutdown.
    Additionally this software can be used to place many restrictions on each user account.For example a user profile can be blocked from accessing certain programs,Windows features or blocked from saving data to the C drive or pen drive.

   Its also possible to a create a user profile from within this software and place time limits on each session.More restrictions are also possible.

   This software is very flexible;many settings can be changed according to user preferences.In my opinion the only limitation is that it is not possible to selectively save changes made to files/folders.Other paid softwares like Deepfreeze,Returnil,etc have this feature.

The best thing is that the pc can be as good as new everytime it is restarted.
   Download link:http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx