is there a way to revert today's activities everyday or every reboot

[chrissy]

My brother is mentally disabled. he loves to surf the web. he is a 9 yr old with a 29 yr old body...

BUT everytime we see him, we have to format his computer because he trashes it. pop ups, porn, games, spyware, trojans, name it, he gets it.

Donnie said he had seen a software once before that would revert windows after a reboot/shutdown/nightly.

Basically, we don't want him to be able to save anything, install anything, download anything and keep it.

[Cubsfan]

Normally I don't recommend it, but if all he does is surf the web you might install Linux (probably Ubuntu). He can still surf the web all he wants, but Linux is generally a pretty good defense against most of those things.

[DarkFury]

Go get Acronis True Image and run a nightly incremental backup. Then you can just restore a backup from the previous day to erase the stuff he did during the day he used your computer. :D

[Nija]

I don't remember what the program is called, I want to say Black Ice or something similar, but when I was in school there was a program that no matter what you did, upon restart it would undo any and all changes you had made to the computer. To make any change stick you had to log in with a certain log in and password. I wish I remembered the name =\

[Jeffbx]

Deep Freeze! (http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp)

Locks the computer & resets it after every reboot. Nija you were close - Black Ice is the old software firewall.

$45 for a single user license

[mechmike0034]

Windows SteadyState (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx) - free...

Puppy Linux from a bootable CD (http://puppylinux.com/cd-puppy.htm) is an option, too...

OpenDNS has a filtering option (http://www.opendns.com/solutions/homenetwork/parental/) in the event you want to restrict his web access to certain types of content...

[Nija]

Deep Freeze! (http://www.faronics.com/html/deepfreeze.asp)

Locks the computer & resets it after every reboot. Nija you were close - Black Ice is the old software firewall.

$45 for a single user license

YES!

I really think this, or something like it, would be the easiest option. You set the computer up once, your brother does what he does and everything undone by a simple restart. Totally low maintenance.:thumb:

[chrissy]

Thanks guys!

He lives in IL and it's so hard to help mom maintain his computer from here. It was worse when we were in Vegas, but with us closer, we have been reformating every 6 or so weeks. This last time, he was without a computer for about a month. Which is fine.

We will check them all out and see which is best. I think the only draw back will be game data. This might not be our answer, but it might have to be.

[mechmike0034]

Thanks guys!

He lives in IL and it's so hard to help mom maintain his computer from here.

http://www.ammyy.com/en/

Installs as a service, so you can log into his machine remotely without any intervention on his part.

This is the easiest remote client for Windows I've used...

[Devhux]

http://www.ammyy.com/en/

Installs as a service, so you can log into his machine remotely without any intervention on his part.

This is the easiest remote client for Windows I've used...

Not too helpful if he's gotten the computer to a point where it needs reformatting, but yes, it is one of the easiest remote control clients I've used. :)

[attgig]

if it's websites that are causing all this mess, what if you lock the computer down instead?

one option is:
http://www.teamsoftwaresolutions.com/
using that doesn't allow a lot of functionality to download/install things.

you can then limit his user rights to save things into a single temp directory. and limit is installation rights of any programs he may try to download.

if you lock it down correctly, it will act almost like a terminal at a library or any other public computer that you may encounter. You should not have to even deal with restoring the computer nightly.

[Airencracken]

Sounds like a LiveCD of some Linux Distro like Knoppix or Ubuntu would be a good choice, of course that doesn't fix your game data problem.

[chrissy]

Well, Linux was a no - Mom said she was too old to teach a new OS to :hihi:

Bill threw a fit over a total lockdown so we are giving him one more chance - we have him as a basic user with mom as the admin. We have him monitored with the software we use with Audrey and Mikey where he can only be on certain times of the day and only for so long. He is swearing off porn (HA!) and downloads of older games and such (Another HA!) Mom knows how to add "forbidden" sites to the software. She is just going to have to get more active with him and his computer use or we will have to use something from above no matter how pissy he gets.

[sho.gun]

Windows SteadyState (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx) - free...

Hmm, I've never heard of that. Pretty cool! Thanks :)

[mechmike0034]

http://www.ammyy.com/en/

Installs as a service, so you can log into his machine remotely without any intervention on his part.

This is the easiest remote client for Windows I've used...

Ammyy charges for the unattended remote login service now.

In addition, free remote access is limited to 15 hours per month...

[Devhux]

Ammyy charges for the unattended remote login service now.

In addition, free remote access is limited to 15 hours per month...

http://www.ammyy.com/en/buy.html

This link still shows that the free version does remote administration of unattended computers and servers. Luckily for me, the 15 hours a month isn't too much of a concern, since I only use it for troubleshooting my parents' computers and such.

For my own system, I use Remote Desktop... but that doesn't help my parents when I need to actually show them something (and Remote Assistance doesn't maintain a solid connection for some bizarre reason).

[gear02]

Windows also has parental controls:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/parental-controls.aspx

[mechmike0034]

http://www.ammyy.com/en/buy.html

This link still shows that the free version does remote administration of unattended computers and servers.

The website is wrong. I tried last night and this morning to remotely connect (I have a computer upstairs that has Ammyy set up as a service) and got this:

http://www.raymondkwan.com/uploader2/files/1316/ammyynotfree.jpg



Luckily for me, the 15 hours a month isn't too much of a concern, since I only use it for troubleshooting my parents' computers and such.

For my own system, I use Remote Desktop... but that doesn't help my parents when I need to actually show them something (and Remote Assistance doesn't maintain a solid connection for some bizarre reason).

CrossLoop (http://www.crossloop.com/) is good, but requires installation. ShowMyPC.com (http://showmypc.com/) is free, but flaky. It also won't maintain a good connection sometimes. They also used to have unattended access for free, but they started charging for it a while back.

I know I want a lot for nothing. :)