In our computer labs, we currently use Deep Freeze.[1] It lets us grant
our users full administrative rights, without worrying about malware,
viruses, and such, because any changes the user makes are wiped out when
they log off.
A couple of years ago, the campus as a whole switched to PaperCut for
managing print jobs.[2] This maintains separate print queues for each
student, so that when they swipe their student card at the print release
station, they see only their own print jobs. Convenient! At least
compared to Pharos, the old system.
Unfortunately, there's a nasty side-effect, which is that it takes a
loooooong time to log into the lab computers. Generally 5-6 minutes,
sometimes as much as 10. What's happening is:
1) A student logs in with their Active Directory credentials
2) The computer checks for a user profile and doesn't find one
3) The computer creates a new windows profile for the student (slooow!)
4) When they log off, Deep Freeze wipes out the profile.
The fact that the computer has to download, install, and configure the
PaperCut print drivers makes Step 3 even slower. They're per-user.
They're baked into the user profile, so they get created fresh every
time and wiped out again afterwards.
As a recent comment on Yik-Yak put it: "Patience is waiting for the
library computers to log you on."
We're currently on Windows 8 (yuck), but the problem occurred with 7 as
well.
We've talked about removing Deep Freeze and simply placing the computers
on restricted accounts with no permissions to install software, etc.
That would *partially* address it, because profiles would no longer be
wiped out. As long as students went to the same computer over and over,
they'd only be faced with a long logon the first time. But, of course,
it's a lab and there's no guarantee you can get the same computer all
the time, so that's a poor solution at best.
[1] http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/enterprise/
[2] http://www.papercut.com/
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