Illinois - Security

RE: SteadyState

2009-11-04T19:24:17Z

I am sure you got answers to your question by now but if not.

With windows Steady state, if the hard drive protection is turn on your antivirus will not update. You need to turn it off and let the computers update. What I would suggest is picking an off hour that the computers are on but no one is using them to automatically turn off Steady State and do all of your updates and then automatically turns back on.

RE: Windows SteadyState and Children's Games

2009-09-02T18:27:51Z

Hello. I have been working with the original children's games that were offered by the Gates Foundation and have figured out which 9 games will work with Windows XP. The games are Arthur's BrainTeasers, Arthur's Math Carnival, Arthur's Reading Roundup, Green Eggs and Ham, Stellaluna, Rabbit Ears Leopard, Rabbit Ears Paul Bunyan, Rabbit Ears Koi, Magic School Bus Dinosaurs, Magic School Bus Rainforest, and Magic School Bus Earth.

All of these will work. You will have to set the permissions in an Administrative Account so that your public access accounts can use these. Thanks.

RE: Windows SteadyState - Ghost 2003 - Sysprep - Help!

2009-09-02T18:22:15Z

Hello. I didn't get any responses on here when I asked this question, so I ventured out and asked a collegue that uses Steadystate and I have found his advice to be very useful.

First, off I did not use sysprep at all. Before I installed Windows SteadyState on the computer, I added the public profiles as regular users and the administrator profiles to the computer . I then went in and set up the software in each profile - Office, Media Player, I.E. 8 and the children's games that I found will work on Windows XP with no problems. After getting each profile set up and the desktop the way I want it, I then used Norton Ghost 2003 to image all 66 computers. Once an image was created, I logged back into the computer and renamed it to a different name. Remember that I have not loaded Windows SteadyState yet onto these computers. After every computer had been re-imaged, I then installed Windows SteadyState on each indivdual computer separately. Remember all the profiles will show up in WindowsSteady State and then you add the permissions to each profile. Do not lock the profiles until you are sure everything works according to your satisfaction.

This way when you need to reghost a computer, you can uninstall Windows SteadyState and the profiles will remain on the computer because they were not created using Windows SteadyState. Hope this helps someone. Thanks.

Windows SteadyState - Ghost 2003 - Sysprep - Help!

2009-08-27T19:53:07Z

Hello. I have installed Windows Steadystate am in the process of trying to ghost 66 Dell Optiplex 760 desktops using Norton Ghost 2003 and sysprep. When I tried this the first time, the public shared profiles remained locked and I could not get them to unlock. The second time, I exported the shared users, however only the restrictions for each user transferred and not the desktop settings that I had customized for each shared public user. I have researched this and have not come up with any step-by-step sure-to-work instructions.

Has anyone successfully used Windows Steadystate 2.5, Ghost 2003 and sysprep to get desktops or laptops fully working with the user customizations still intact as well as being able to lock and unlock the user profiles. You may send me an email at bonitacollins@yahoo.com or you can reply and I will surely appreciate it. Thanks.

Windows SteadyState and Children's Games

2009-08-11T14:02:19Z

Hello. We have 66 new Dell Opti-plex 760 desktop computers. I am a first time Windows Steadystate user and wanted to install the Gates children's games on these computers which will be used for public access. I have figured out how to get the games to work correctly but am having problems with icons not remaining where I have placed them on the desktop, games lock up when trying to exit out using Alt-F4 (when logged in as child); the screen size changing to a larger size as well as the display changing. I am on the intial setup of the profiles and have all restrictions disabled.

Has someone successfully installed the Gates children's games using Windows Steadystate? Please reply as your help is much appreciated. BoNiTa

RE: Anti Virus Suggestions

2009-06-19T18:26:01Z

Sharon,

The TechSoup options looks good but I would be restricted on the amount of licenses I could purchase (versus what I need to cover all of the PCs in our system).

I will keep digging - thanks for the help though!

RE: Anti Virus Suggestions

2009-06-17T22:40:59Z

Hi Chad,

Norton 360 3.0 is available through Techsoup for a very good price and it has gotten pretty good reviews. You may find that you like it better than the Norton product you've used in the past.

http://www.techsoup.org/stock/category.asp?catalog_name=TechSoupMain&category_name=Spam&Page=1

http://reviews.cnet.com/software/norton-360-v-3/4505-3513_7-33567811.html?tag=mncol;lst

Best,
Sharon

Anti Virus Suggestions

2009-06-16T21:56:06Z

It is that time of year where I start looking at what little money I have in my budget (and believe me when I say little).

Every year I always ask about anti vrus software but I really have put a bit more effort into this year because of our economy.

Can you all make suggestions as far as anti virus?

Currently we use Symantec Corporate AV but I have never really been that impressed with what it catches. Heck, Malware Bytes' seems to do more for me.

What are you using and do you find that it gives you a good bang for your buck?

Windows SteadyState keeps rebooting

2009-03-09T14:53:40Z

I just went and turned off SteadyState to do some updates and now the computer keeps rebooting with the message "SteadyState Rebooting - Do not manually turn off Computer". You are unable to get this to stop, it just keeps rebooting & rebooting..... and will not allow you to login with a user. Does anyone know of a way to get past this? Thanks

Rick - North Adams Public Library

SteadyState

2009-01-28T21:23:38Z

Our library is running SteadyState on Vista. I would like to know exactly what happens when you are logged on as Administrator and get the following warning:
Windows Disk Protection Is On
The computer is about to restart or shut down. You must select one of the following options in the time remaining or the computer will automatically continue and remove all changes.
Continue and remove all changes.
If you choose this option, you will lose all changes when the computer is restarted or shut down because Windows Disk Protection is set to Remove all changes at restart.
Save changes and then continue.
After the changes are saved, the Remove all changes at restart settings will be turned back on for the next session.

When I log on as administrator AVG update pops up and downloads updates. If I choose Save Changes and then Continue, will it actually save the updates permanently? Or do I still have to go in to Windows Disk Protection, change the setting to Retain all changes permanently, restart the computer, log on as Admin and change the setting back to Remove all changes at restart?
AVG has written a script to allow updates in SteadyState but I'm not having any luck finding the script file after I download it from AVG. If the "warning" actually works the way it sounds, my virus update problem would be easily solved.

RE: Malware

2008-12-06T16:48:34Z

"Thieves Winning Online War, Maybe in Your PC" By JOHN MARKOFF, December 5, 2008 -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/technology/internet/06security.html

Adobe Flash "Cookies" / "LSOs" (Local Shared Objects)

2008-10-29T15:54:57Z

I recall reading about this in the article "Tracking with Flash "Cookies"" (http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=security&seqNum=276 last fall. Recently Windows Secrets (in their paid content section) ran a more in depth article by Woody Leonhard, "Flash cookies are putting your privacy at risk".

On public access computers using some type of disk protection (e.g., Windows SteadyState with disk protection enabled, Deep Freeze, Clean Slate, CenturionGuard, etc.), the actual storage of these LSOs should not be an issue. However, storage of them may be an issue on staff computers. And you may want to tweak the settings on both public and staff computers. The settings manager is actually accessed via the web -- http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html, and more specifically http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager.html#117118.

Please note that these "cookies" are not controlled by your web browser! Nor is it necessary for there to be any visible Flash content on a page for them to be used!!

RE: Malware

2008-10-15T17:24:45Z

Article: "Top security suites fail exploit tests
Security software suites -- including popular programs from McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro -- don't protect users from real-world exploits, Secunia warns" By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld, October 14, 2008 -- http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/10/14/Top_security_suites_fail_exploit_tests_1.html

Secunia blog: http://secunia.com/blog/29/

Secunia paper: http://secunia.com/gfx/Secunia_Exploit-vs-AV_test-Oct-2008.pdf

Open Source Security Suite -- Untangle & Untangle Re-Router

2008-09-17T17:07:43Z

I have not used this personally. However, I would be interested to know if anyone else has. Or if anyone has the capability to test it out and let us know about it.

I saw this originally in "Untangle turns ordinary PC into security box" -- http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/09/16/Untangle_turns_ordinary_PC_into_security_box_1.html .

It looks like there are two different setups: 1) an Untangle Gateway requiring a dedicated PC and 2 (or 3) NICS, for larger networks and 2) Untangle Re-router that can run on an existing Windows XP PC with just 1 NIC for smaller networks (25 PCs or less).

Here are some links to more information on the Untangle website:

main page -- http://www.untangle.com/
Re-Router -- http://www.untangle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=434&Itemid=1527
Support Overview -- http://www.untangle.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48&Itemid=75
Documentation -- http://wiki.untangle.com/index.php/Main_Page
Forums -- http://forums.untangle.com/

Passwords / Authentication

2008-08-10T14:39:19Z

NYT article: "Goodbye, Passwords. You Aren’t a Good Defense." -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/technology/10digi.htm

Re: Microsoft Shared Toolkit and USB Drives

2008-06-06T13:01:50Z

Amber,

1. Unrestrict a series of drives in the Toolkit. Windows may attempt to use a different drive for each type of USB key. You can test this theory by unrestricting all the drives initially. You should be protected as long as Cornerstone is enabled.

2. If the issue is driver related, you may want to download the drivers for the different USB keys and install them. Of course, you'll need to put Cornerstone in a change state and set it back to no-change after your done.

John

Microsoft Shared Toolkit and USB Drives

2008-06-03T17:24:10Z

Hello. I work at a very small public library (6 computer stations). Recently the Director requested that the computers be enabled to use USB drives. I unrestricted the appropriate drive letters in the toolkit profile and unblocked the USB drives in Compugard's Cornerstone (hard-drive security). The Kingston USB drive I used to test things worked fine (the packaging specified that no driver was required), but all the other drives people have attempted to use won't work. Some show up in My Computer, but can't be accessed. These are Dell Computers, btw. Any suggestions about something else I should have done?
Amber

Re: DiscoverStation

2007-12-03T14:18:13Z

Hi--I visited the Malden (MA) Public Library to look at the system. It has been there for 3 years and the Ref/IT Librarian, Stephen Nedell, loves it. I am sure he would answer questions. His email is snedell@maldenpubliclibrary.org.

Re: DiscoverStation

2007-11-30T22:09:43Z

My experience is similar. I've heard good things, but I don't have any hands-on experience. Two large systems in Washington are currently using DiscoverStation -- North Central Regional Library System and Yakima Valley Library System -- so you might get in touch with one of them.

Re: DiscoverStation

2007-11-30T21:53:31Z

I haven't really heard anything more lately either, but I am fairly out of touch with ground level pac implementation these days - my work no longer is directly connected with public access.

I can say that I have heard pretty much only positive things from people who have used these systems. Perhaps if Chris J. or Chris P see this they may have some more recent experience to add?

Dale