Deep Freeze (and protection for VIRUSES and malware)

Originally Posted by Maico

Is anyone familiar with this program? What it does is kind of like taking a snapshot of your computer, and everytime you reboot, it resets to that snapshot, always. So it doesn't matter if you get 1 million viruses or spyware crap, your computer will come back in mint condition again on startup.

I used to have this program on my computer, but I deleted it and got rid of it after it being too much of a hassle. Granted it worked great, and I loved the protection it offered, but some installing and uninstalling lots of different programs and things of that natures, turning it on and off (you had to reboot everytime you turned it on or off) made me just turn it off for good.

Anyway, fast forward to now. I just got over dealing with more bullshit spyware and trojan viruses (what the fuck with these people making these gayass things, what a headache and time waste to try to fix it all), which I'm sure is almost gone, but I bet I still missed some shit, as I keep getting some random Internet Explorer page pop up, even when I'm only using Firefox. Better run some more spyware programs, more work and headache, grr.

So, I'm thinking about getting this program again, just to safeguard my computer. But, first a couple questions to those who are familiar with the program, because I don't really know much about how it works. My friend was the one who installed the program on my computer after he tweaked with it for a while using a remote desktop program. If I'm downloading files onto my computer, whether it's music or vidos, is there a way to make it bypass the Deep Freeze program, or is there an option on Deep Freeze that will let you do this, or would I have to turn it off everytime I wanted to save something onto the hard drive? An alternative I was thinking of was to burn what I saved onto a CD-RW or DVD-RW and then reboot with Deep Freeze off and transfer what was on the disc to my hard drive, kind of a round about way of doing it, but still safe.

I'm just sick and tired of all this spyware and other bullshit when I'm on the web. And this Deep Freeze thing seems like the only 100% way to be safe, but quite a bit of a hassle, especially on a non-commercial PC like mine. I tried using firewalls (Zone Alarm), but it just got way too confusing and my connection would be slow as shit, so I stopped using that, just using the shitty Windows XP one. As for anti-virus stuff, I used to use Norton, but that shit just sucks as well, so just downloaded Nod32 and giving that a whirl along with my old Spybot and Ad-Aware programs. Hopefully I won't run into anymore problems after trying to clean up this piece of shit computer.

Any other ways I can safeguard my computer so I don't have to deal with this annoying crap anymore, or at least with as few problems as possible from time to time?

I'm quite familiar with Deep Freeze, and I recommend you partition your hard drive or install another one to save files onto if you are going to run this program. ANY changes made to a partition or drive secured by DF will be lost on reboot. This includes files added or programs installed.

Personally speaking, running Deep Freeze on a home PC sounds a little extreme to me. You've already got NOD32 which is excellent, and I also recommend using Sygate Firewall 5.5 and Firefox. Between these three programs I've been malware and virus free for nearly two years.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Windows Backup Utility is crap. Period. Use Norton Ghost.

If you restore a backup that you made with Ghost, you are essentially formatting your hard drive and copying the files to the hard drive. Anything that was on the drive prior to backup is totally destroyed. Malware included.

To be honest, I think your being a little paranoid about the malware issue. Just install some good security software (NOD32 for an AV, and Sygate 5.5 for a firewall) you should be fine. You're already using Firefox which is good. I use this combo and I haven't been infected for well over a year.

Also, I recommend BitComet or uTorrent for a torrent manager.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Maico

Just tested out the Norton Ghost backup, and some questions. First I made a backup of my system data after installing programs (let's say A, B, and C). Then, as a test, I installed new programs (let's say D, E, and F) and proceeded to use Norton Ghost to restore my computer to its original state using the backup file. Programs A, B, and C are showing up on the Start Menu bar and in the Add/Remove programs menu from the Control Panel, but programs D, E, and F are missing in action. I installed them to a different partition, so the actual files are still there, and I can open and use the programs just fine.

So, my question is, how is it possible they are still working, since they aren't showing up in my Add/Remove programs list? They shouldn't be in the registry, right, since I backed it up before installing them onto the computer (I tried looking in the Registry Editor, but that place is so confusing, looking under HKey Local Machine Software, but I didn't see them in there)? If they aren't in the registry, is it just safe to delete the folders containing the programs and just re-install them over again to make them show up in the Add/Remove programs list?

Edit: It is nice that I can use these programs without them sucking up more hard drive space. I guess whenever you install programs to your computer it adds lots of information or something to the registry or another. I was installing these programs on a seperate partition, but it would keep making the Windows partition go up in size, maybe with their un-install info, etc, etc, I'm not sure.

Even though you installed the programs to a different partition, some program files and un-install information is kept on C:

How ya doing, buddy?