Steve Silverwood said:
There's also Windows SteadyState (URL below) that keeps a system from
being changed permanently. Every time the system restarts, it undoes
everything that the previous runtime changed. Microsoft came up with
it for use on public systems and the like, so that no matter what bozo
uses the computer, he can't completely farble it up because when he
logs out it gets reset back the way it was.
Windows SteadyState:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.m
spx
It's extremely unlikely that the OP has SteadyState installed without him
being aware of it, as he would not be able to change or install anything,
let alone make a default printer stick.
I have used SteadyState to make my auntie's ThinkPad laptop completely
reliable for her. I made her account a normal level user account, and made
My Documents for that account into a NTFS Mounted Volume, which is a second
partition on the drive. Desktop and %appdata% for the same account is
routed with a Junction Point to a hidden folder on the same partition. This
allows files and settings to be saved in the usual way while keeping the
actual system state fixed.
As files can be saved, I stopped the file saving warning notification,
bubble.exe, from running in the account:
bubble.exe. You can remove that from...
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
....and moved it to the Admin account's HKCU, as it is needed in the Admin
account to commit changes. I enabled Remote Desktop on the Admin account,
and added the service daemon for No-IP.com's Dynamic DNS Update client, to
give an live updated domain to the laptop, on my No-IP account, so that I
can Remote Desktop into the laptop at any time, from anywhere, to install
software and commit changes.
One caveat is that folders cannot be deleted from the Desktop, as the C:\xxx
address from the Junction Point confuses the Recycle Bin. They have to be
SHIFT-dragged to the bin, for instant deletion, or the Desktop folder on D:\
needs to be opened to delete the folder from there.
It's such a great solution for someone that needs to administrate a computer
for someone else that does not know that much about computers. I ought to
write a webpage describing this sometime.
ss.
