Windows Steady State
ByAre you the IT expert for your small business or household? Do you have employees or kids who are not very safety/web/tech conscious and savvy? Have you noticed your home or business computer slowing down, is it collecting a multitude of shortcuts and downloaded programs on the desktop? Perhaps you are in charge of a bank of computers used by the public (at an internet cafe or library) and you need a way to manage them and keep them safe and in a reliable state.
Microsoft developed Windows Steady State as a free service for XP and Vista users to make it as easy as a reboot to get their computers back to healthy again. So, if you have a shared computer, or just want the ability to restore a non-shared computer to its former pristine state with a reboot, then Steady State could be for you.
Wouldn’t it be nice to feel confident about installing a new piece of software, knowing if it didn’t work out, you wouldn’t have to worry about uninstalling it and wondering if it’s completely gone. This is a great, free tool for someone who does software testing. If you’re the person everyone in your family calls when there’s computer trouble, you could install this on their computer and set a few controls and tell them to reboot when something happens!
If you’re going to use Steady State for commercial use, it’s a good idea to get all the computers optimized (deleting temp files, running virus scans, making sure windows is updated, removing unneeded programs, etc.) before installing Steady State. The most important thing to do beforehand, according to Microsoft, is to defrag your hard drive. The point is to get your machines in a ‘like new’ state so that after you reboot, it will be configured the way you need it to be.
When you’re ready, go here to get your computer validated and to download the software. After it’s installed, start it up and you’ll see this welcome screen. Now you’re ready to set up user accounts and specify parameters of what each user is allowed to do. Here are a few of the restrictions you can program (taken from Microsoft’s site):
Start Menu restrictions let you remove items from the Start Menu. This means you can disable user access to items such as:
Shut Down
Control Panel
Command Prompt
Windows Explorer
Drive restrictions determine which drives are visible to the user in My Computer. You can select the option to hide all drives or show some drives. Includes removable storage devices.
Program restrictions let you block a user from running a particular program, such as a system tool, simply by adding that program to the blocked list.
Feature restrictions can stop users from accessing program attributes that might damage or clutter the computer.
Internet restrictions
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Once you have a profile/user account set up to your specifications, you can then use that profile to import to other computers or user accounts. There is an extensive help section to answer your questions and also a section for Advanced Administrators you may find helpful.
If you have special restrictions for each user, take full use of all the possibilities in the control panel of Steady State. Here’s a great place to start getting an overview of what the program can do, complete with some short videos.
When I was setting up my test account, I first set the ‘protect the hard disk’ setting to ‘remove all changes at restart’. I then got a warning that it would take more disk space and resources, but went ahead and did it. I did notice a big drag on my system when I rebooted and logged back into my identity. Then, I changed the setting to ‘remove all changes to a specified time’. I didn’t get the same warning, so I’ll see if that makes things run faster.
I did a little research and it seems others have noticed performance slowdowns as well—mainly during the reboot process. So, I’m going to keep it for awhile and run more tests. Most feel it’s an excellent product and I would certainly have something like this if I were in charge of a bank of computers available to the public.
If you have experience with Steady State, please leave your comments.
