Protecting Your Computer Using Deep FreezeIt’s now almost three weeks ago when I installed Deep Freeze on my machine. Time for a review.

I stumbled upon Deep Freeze via James’ retired blog when he talked about computer security and how it affects our Internet business and can become a pain. He recommended a small tool which is being used by Internet cafés and libraries, for example. With that neat little tool, there is…

  • No need to run and install the latest version of anti-virus software
  • No need to run and install the latest version of anti-spyware software
  • No need to run and install the latest version of Windows Update (some of which destroy your Windows installation; isn’t that funny?)
  • No need to run and install the latest version of firewall software
  • No need to make a new, clean OS install every 1-2 years because the computer became too slow
  • No need to worry about data loss due to hackers, trojaners, viruses, system crashes, etc etc
  • No need to worry about whether or not Windows’ System Restore works (it never worked in my case)

Sounds too good to be true? Read on…

It came in handy because one of my three Operating Systems (“OS”), Windows XP German, did not run properly anymore. And shortly after this, the second one (XP English) as well not anymore. It seemed as if I had a virus, although I ran updated anti-virus and anti-spyware… (Sounds familiar?)

So, I found it to be a good time to give Deep Freeze a shot.

Preparation For Deep Freeze

Now, the tricky part was to prepare for The Day and set my system up properly. What I mean is this…

As the name implies, Deep Freeze puts your machine into a deeply frozen state. Once you reboot your system, all is back to normal. It is as if you’re bringing your computer back into the freshest or newest state possible.

Here is how one would normally install Deep Freeze…

  1. Format the system disk/partition
  2. Install the OS and all of the software you need on a daily basis
  3. Install Deep Freeze and tell it to freeze your system.
  4. Now, whenever you boot your system, all is back to the point where you installed Deep Freeze.

As mentioned, the tricky part for my particular case was the set up process. First thing I did was formatting my main hard drive.

There are four hard disks in my computer. The first one with 180 GB is for the operating systems. I split that disk into 3 partitions: #1 for Windows XP, #2 for Windows Vista, and #3 for “other stuff” such as testing a new operating system, or if the other two do not boot I still have one partition remaining to install an OS on and boot my computer to see what’s wrong with the other two partitions.

Then the next disk (180GB) is one I use to save all kinds of data (for several years already), more or less timeless stuff.

Then comes the third disk (500GB) which I use primarily for my SiteSell video productions, my Web sites’ files, product creation files, some more “stuff”, as well as for “My Documents” and the MS Outlook data file (which I do not use anymore though since I “outsourced” e-mail to GMail).

Finally, there is disk #4 (150GB) which I used to use as a backup disk for my most critical data (video production files, Outlook data file, Web sites files, etc), but because of Deep Freeze I can safely skip this step and use disk #4 for saving the day-to-day software programs there. (For performance reasons, it is a good idea to install software on a separate disk so that you have one disk for your OS and one for installed software.)

I still do use a hard drive for backup purposes, which is an external one and requires USB only, and it is excellent for when I’m traveling. (Seagate FreeAgent Go 160GB – I love it! :-)

Now, before I set up Deep Freeze, I was under the impression it would create images (i.e., clones) of all the disks that I want to freeze. To my surprise, though, it is a neat little program running in the background, which I notice by its taskbar icon only (and perhaps a 3-second message during restart).

Compare that with some of the anti-virus or anti-spyware programs out there and you know what I mean. Once you installed them, they immediately slow down your system in order to “do a good job”.

Deep Freeze, however, keeps your machine in good, fresh shape.

How Deep Freeze Works

The only thing that may annoy people and got me to change my habits: Deep Freeze resets everything.

Saved a URL in your browser’s favorites? That is lost once you reboot the OS. Saved a file on your desktop? Yup, that is lost, too. Changed settings in a software application? That’s also reversed to the previous setting. So, how do you save your day-to-day work or change preferences?

Two options for saving your day-to-day stuff…

  1. You let one disk (or one partition) in an unfrozen state. You can define that during installation of Deep Freeze. You specify which drive letters you want Deep Freeze to protect. In my case, I have disk #3 in unfrozen state, the one where I save and work with important day-to-day data. The crucial parts (disk #1, #2 & #4) are in frozen state though and therefore perfectly protected.
  2. You use a thumb drive, memory stick, or simply an external hard drive.

As for changing settings, preferences, or saving favorites, you simply tell Deep Freeze to restart your computer in an unfrozen state (by pressing the Shift key on your keyboard while double-clicking on the Deep Freeze symbol in the taskbar, then modify accordingly).

Once you reboot, you can change whatever you wish, save passwords, bookmark, etc. Once you reboot your computer again (so it’s in the frozen state again), all your changes are saved, and you can continue to work more conveniently and fully protected—without anti-virus nor anti-spyware nor any other of that crap.

Additionally, once I notice some weird happening, I simply reboot the whole system and that “weird happening” magically disappeared as if it was never there. (Just happened in a coaching session yesterday… black screen while still on the Skype phone. A quick reboot and it was solved.)

There is a downside though… Although it is supposed to restore everything, including your browse history, it does happen on my machine that visited URLs disappear from the browse history. (Though, I figured that to be a very minor downside.)

Also, in case you delete something, it restores it. Even when you hold down the Shift key while pressing Delete, it restores it. This may be a downside for some. But when you look at it from the other side, Deep Freeze is supposed to completely protect whatever you have installed and saved.

Just imagine you let one of your friends (or kids?) on your computer and s/he “accidentally” deletes crucial data. No worries with Deep Freeze… it’s all still there after reboot. :-) (That means, when you do want to delete something from protected partitions, unfreeze your computer, delete the file(s), and refreeze it again.)

Bottom Line

The Bottom Line is that I now save a whole bunch of valuable time—at least a couple hours per month—fixing idiosyncrasies on an ongoing basis. And I can sleep a bit better now. ;-)

—Marcus Hochstadt

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120 Responses to Protecting Your Computer Using Deep Freeze

  1. chodirin says:

    as i know deep freezee ca make our computer crash

  2. Hehe funny, never heard of that one, and never experienced myself. It works like a charm. Can you be more specific? Or is that just an assumption?

    • pruthvi says:

      in deep freeze if we want to delete what to do?i want to cut it and paste it and unfrozen disk and delete it because i dont want that again after restarting and if i install brower in the unfrozen disk 
      the history remains the same or return to the previous state and about games also i want to know please help me.

      • Matthewnabua says:

        the good solution in your problem is

        get a hammer and hit ur computer using the hammer
        and bwena tapos problema!!

      • Janice Christine Alvarez says:

        if you add your day to day stuff on a drive that is not under deep freeze like I do. I easily delete and save what I want like a normal without deep freeze would. all the stuff that are important are on deep freeze they are stored nice and safe. Although what annoys me is that I need to save favorites from time to time. I have to unlock my deep freeze to do that. Or maybe I should also save my favorite folders under the one without deep freeze. I have to play around with it first

    • carrol says:

      it has happen multiple times to me, the first week i used it my compter crashed, and when rebooted the essay that i was working on was no where to be found.
      im just trying to figure out how to retrieve data that was saved to the computer hard drive. i didnt save this new essay that i was working on to my personsal nor a thumb drive, just only to computer and when i came back three hours later it was no where to be found,it sucks so bad because this paper is like 40% of my grade, ugh so fustrating

  3. I don’t have DeepFreeze, but I did use something called System Commander at one time that did about the same thing. I created 6 drives on one computer and ran Linux, XP, and 98 on three partitions. The other three were split up into executables, documents, and file sharing. It worked out pretty well.

  4. noelevz says:

    great review! Seems a very handy software to me! I always seem to get a virus here and there even if I update my anti-virus regularly.

  5. timbury says:

    Running only Linux, and sometimes BSD or Solaris, I don’t have the need for any of this. But for those who love the Dark Master Windoze, this seems like a good tool. There have been partition and disk imaging packages for many years, of course, like Ghost. But if it is easier to use, it is a valuable alternative. Thanks for the well-written review.

  6. Rich says:

    I have been using a very similar setup for over 6 months. It works great. You do have to always remember to move new data to the secondary storage drive, but that becomes reflex in time.

    One nice side benefit is that you can run (or try) new software on your frozen machine and if you don’t like it, no need to uninstall or worry about extra stuff left behind to slow down your computer. Just reboot.

    Here are some additional suggestions:

    On my primary (frozen) drive, I have also installed “Total Uninstall” (www.martau.com). This is a GREAT program. Whenever you install a program permanently (in unfrozen mode), this program will track every single change made and log the change. Then, you can easily remove every trace of a program. This is in case you make a mistake or regret having a program on your otherwise clean Deepfreeze system. I would say this program is easily the best uninstaller available (most similar programs just look for fragments after the fact, whereas this one actually observes the data as it is being placed, and records it, so as not to miss anything).

    For secondary storage drives, I no longer use external standalone drives. Instead, I bought one of these:

    http://geekstuff4u.com/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=847

    It allows you to use any sata INTERNAL drive just like a cartridge. Why is this great? Because internal drives are very compact, and are much cheaper than complete external drives. Where I live you can sometimes get a 1 terrabyte internal drive for about $170 on sale, and the price will get better. I have five 1 TB internal drives all stacked up in less space than a single bulky external drive with without lots of extra cables and power supplies.

    There are a few stores in the states that sell a single drive version of the above (USB only), but I ordered the one above because it supports 2 drives (great for copying from one to another) and also esata, which is MUCH faster. (You may need to add a simple esata port card to your computer if you want to use the esata feature, but you can get that locally for only about $20). Or you can use it as a USB drive. Your choice.

    As Marcus suggested, it is best to implement Deep Freeze on your computer in a clean state, with your core applications. And I recommend first installing the Total Uninstall program FIRST, then use it to install all the subsequent applications.

  7. Pat King says:

    Wow, looks great. I think I will have to check this out. Thanks Marcus!

  8. eBay says:

    I recommend using recovery card hardware for security of our PC. In my place the brand are PC Armour. It can destroy all attacks including virus, spyware, trojan and all of them, with just pressing “reset” button. Just need to reboot, the threats will dissapear.
    But the best is using deep freeze with recovery card.

    • Networld786 says:

      from were will i get deep freeze software freeware ,i downloaded share ware only gor 30 days ,kindly tell me site 4m wher can i get freeware deep freeze
      plz help me email id- networld786@gmail:disqus .com

      waseem ramzan from andaman

  9. jeflin says:

    I think this is a great software to install because we never know if the site we visit these days contain viruses or spyware but saving all data now becomes very important.

    But if your computer hang, what happens to your your documents? Are they auto-saved?

  10. Stefen says:

    Deep freeze is pretty good for a software, but we have to make sure there are no virus, spyware or etc before freeze our disk.

    I don’t use deep freeze because I found some virus infected in my pc, I’m too lazy to format it since its still can run quite good.

  11. Interesting tips here. And a couple observations…

    @ Timbury: I do not love Windows, I need it. There’s too many Windows software that I need but either don’t have as a Mac (or Linux) version, or that is not available for them.

    @ Rich: Great tips, thank you! I took a look and the external solution looks promising. Will take a kook at it again once I have a need for more than one external hard drive. (I just love that cute little Seagate baby too much. ;-)

    @ Jeflin: Re-read the above article. The how-to is explained.

    @ Stefen: Of course, the best option is to run Deep Freeze on a fresh installation. That’s what I did. But since you say you would be too lazy to do that, you’ll live with the viruses that you currently have and will get (knowingly and unknowingly). ;-)

    Take care!

    ~Marcus

  12. chodirin says:

    formerly, i always using deep freeze for all computers in my office. but since get crash and i can’t recover it, i never using deep freeze. not only 1, but some computer. i read on error messege it caused deep freeze. sorry, i can’t explain because my English is bad. but if you can translate my language i will tell you hehehe.

  13. Noel says:

    How do u ensure that downloaded files, pdfs etc. are virus-free since you do not now have antivirus software (right?)?

  14. @ Chodirin: Thanks for the explanation. Again, I’ve never heard of that before.

    @ Noel: You could check those using online virus scanners.

  15. Marty says:

    I’ve been using a similar product from Microsoft called SteadyState. It’s similar to Deep Freeze except it is free to download and use and is only designed to work with Windows XP. I’ve had a good experience with it so far as it locks down your system just like Deep Freeze. It also allows you to create multiple user accounts and set-up each one to either retain all changes or delete all changes every time you restart your system.

  16. Josh says:

    Now that is a program worth checking out. I could see that rebooting into the different modes would become annoying but if the problems could wait a bit, a good list of things to change would come in handy. After a while I imagine things would smooth out.

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  18. Pradeep says:

    srsly they work..I also tried few of them and get good results now I’ll try the others too…
    thnks

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  21. Silverspring says:

    Clean Slate does the same thing as Deep Freeze but with different technology. Everything is cached. Nothing is actually written to the Hard Drive or Registry so passwords and such are safe. Any virus you get before you log off and log back in (that’s all it takes for a reset) will simply be cached along with everything else that will be discarded. As for a trojan horse or the like, configuring Windows advanced firewall should catch any unauthorized outbound transmissions.

  22. Steve says:

    I also use Clean Slate to protect my computers. It works just as well as Deep Freeze but without the annoying reboots. I can also configure my software to perform exactly as I want. And if I want to save a favorite, I simply go to Commit files in Clean Slate and tell it to permanently save. Takes 2 seconds. Oh, and did I mention that Clean Slate is cheaper? Check it out at http://WWW.FortresGrand.com

  23. […] that you need in this article to find out how to get your hands on this gem. To do so go here Hochstadt.com. Great Job! Niharika what a Blessing! My daughter has a MP3 player and we have had problems finding […]

  24. Jason Y. says:

    Hey:

    Does ‘Deep Freeze’ harm the hard disk in anyway? What is its mechanism?
    I saw in one property of the hard disk ‘class upper filters’ = DeepFrz
    and I also noticed it device driver of hard disk has a deepfrz.sys file

    Does “deep freeze’ harm ? Anybody has any idea?

  25. DJ says:

    Where can I get a freeware copy?

  26. annaa says:

    please can someone tell me how ca i delete deep freeze because I dont want it no more please tell ok thanks

    • Kryzhell_23 says:

      set in thaw or uninstall..hold shift and click on deep freeze icon then select thaw or go to control panel select add or remove program.. select deep freeze

  27. Go-Gulf says:

    Nice Post to protect your computer from antivirus. There are lot of websites that could harm your computer easily. Like when we visit some crack website or sex website. Deep Freeze seems to me good option to protect your computer from these unknown threat. Deep Freeze is little bit complicated to handle or understand, but once you understand its functions, you protect yourself from all threat.

  28. So I’m guessing it does take up some space on your harddrive.

  29. vuthy says:

    Dear sir/madam

    DeepFreeze is the best application for keeping computers safety from error or viruses attack.

    I have used this application since so long. But one day, I want to disable this application I can not type the passwords. And on the title bar wrote “Application not respond”. As the result I can not disable the application. On the other hand, sometime the icon also not view that cause I can not Shift Click on it.

    Can you give me a solution beside of format window?

    Your Faithfully

    Vuthy Bun

  30. I’ve never heard about DeepFreeze before I read this article. And my first impression was – no, that’s not for me. And this is why.

    (1) Windows keeps all valuable data on C:, all updated data, registry, everything – obviously, C: gets frozen, so no more changes to Windows even as tiny as a new shortcut to a desktop.

    (2) No more new program installations – I can’t live without it.

    (3) No more Windows updates – how the bugs are going to be fixed?

    (4) No more changes to user interface – I’m stuck with the same for the near future.

    (5) No more Firefox etc history, downloads, bookmarks, plugins and so on.

    Marcus, honestly and from my heart, I don’t know how you live with that – you obviously explained, but as a computer guy I still don’t understand. If that helps you and you’re happy, good luck, but this thing is not for me.

    • George,

      Who said you cannot make changes; you can always make changes. Simply put your computer temporarily into the “Thawed state,” make the changes, and restart to the frozen state. So your “no more” points are all invalid. ;-)

      Although… I wouldn’t care about “Windows bug fixes” anymore. My computer is running bug-free since I installed Deep Freeze — that alone saves me a whole bunch of valuable time. ;-)

      And regarding saving bookmarks and files, simply map these to a Thawed (unprotected) partition or drive and you’re able to store all that data, while still enjoying the total system consistency. Besides this, I use an external hard drive for the most critical files so I can quickly and flawlessly move from the PC to the laptop if needed.

      ~Marcus

    • d2 says:

      With Deep Freeze active, you just have to restart your computer and the virus is gone – it is much better than any updates!!

    • George

      I’m an IT guy, one got infected once in 11 years, but 3 years ago, I just visited a website (a blogger website) and something downloaded automatically, stopped that but discovered that I was already infected. 

      That made me think very seriously. I knew about Deep Freeze, but thought that was not necessary until that event. 

      I thought carefully before installing this. The real problem are viruses that stay resident on the PC (those are really difficult to clean because can protect themselves), so the boot sector is the most important area to protect. Obvisously, software that updates frecuently should be put on the unfreezed disk. 

      Firefox downloads could be changed to another place with configuration, bookmarks replaced with shortcuts, plugins installed after careful evaluation and I don’t need history.

      Windows updates are not really necessary. My PC is without windows updates for 3 years and running smooth. I think when the update is really needed, there will be another windows. 

      I use software to automate tasks, so any change in the user interface is very bad for me. If I want to change something, unfreeze, change and freeze. Why you should change your interface 7 days a week?

      You could install software if you plan to leave your PC turned on for several days and when all the software proves useful, you just install them all, just work in batches.

      To add things to the desktop I created a shortcut to a directory on the unfreezed disk, so I could change “the desktop” as I wish (indirectly).

      This tool forces you to work smarter which is really good. Don’t forget to activate the firewall and have an antivirus, because spyware could infect you still while having deep freeze, but you will be clean when you restart your PC. 
       

  31. Victor says:

    Marcus, I was all set to install this myself – a friend told me about it – and I’ve been telling others. Tonight I went looking for the Faronics website and found this first: http://forums.techarena.in/networking-security/1061081.htm

    Better have a look!

    • Hi Victor,

      It’s good to know, but it does not apply to my case. I do not rent the temporary use of my “so many” computers to strangers.

      I have just three, I and my wife use them personally, and Deep Freeze protects them wonderfully, plus the computers run as smooth as on their first day.

      ~Marcus

  32. cheann says:

    dear sir,

    I am using deepfreeze for 2 months now but its icon do not display on the desktop that i cannnot shift to unfrozen state im using windows vista, what will i do i can save data and even change my screen saver! hope you can help me tnx.

  33. Hi, Marcus. For my case, I firstly installed deep freeze where I configured to freeze my primary C drive. Then the PC reboot and everything is fine. Now, I would like to freeze my other partition such as E and F drive. May I know how and where I can configure it? I had been trying pressing SHIFT + Double click the deep freeze button but I can only see 2 tab bar (status and password) but don’t see the option to freeze my other partition. Please advise. Thank you for your time.

    • Restart your computer in the thawed state, uninstall Deep Freeze (by running the Deep Freeze installation file that you used when you installed Deep Freeze in the first place), and then install it again. And when you install it again you choose the hard drives and partitions you want to protect from now on.

      ~Marcus

  34. FelixTheCat says:

    I have been using Deep Freeze for many years now and it has saved my a great deal of time not having to always fix up the computer after “no-one” does anything to break it.

    Anyways before installing I recommend a partitioned hard-drive (or multiple drives)(as suggested above) and a clean install of the OS and all important programs.

    The next step can be tricky but saves a lot of time and annoyances (and would fix most of the complaints above); firstly you need to determine what files you do want to update even when the computer is in a frozen state.
    A personal choice (and a requirement for the other computer uses) was for the My Documents folder, internet browser (bookmarks etc), and the selected email client to be “unfrozen”. Therefore these need to be saved on your unfrozen drive/partition

    The My Documents location can be changed by right clicking it; using Firefox you can easily change the location of the browsing profile and after some tweaks (might need to edit the registry here? can’t remember) the profile and emails for Mozilla Thunderbird can also be moved.

    For people who want the desktop and other common places to update a program like TweakUI can be used to change the location of the Shared Documents folder and even the location of the Desktop so that any file there will stay even after a restart.
    So if you do a little research you should be able to relocate most of those files that you want to remain dynamic.

    As my computer is now, everything that is convenient and required to update does so perfectly. It allows me to test a program not having to worry about all the junk that it puts on my machine. And a more permanent change is a restart away.

    Although some effort was put in to achieve this it was thoroughly worth it; Marcus Hochstadt is giving 100% brilliant advise.

    Thanks

    • FelixTheCat says:

      Another thing I forgot to add is to allow the user to change the system clock (if wanted). This should be done during installation and is something I always forget to do.

  35. anonymous says:

    Deepfreeze is a great piece of software. We used it at my previous job. Great for locking down student pc’s at school. They can wipe the hard drive if they like and on next reboot it’s back to normal… awesome.

  36. This was a great title for a post. I saw the word “deep freeze” and wondered if I was actually going to be putting my computer in a frozen state….lol. Sometimes I feel that way. Anyway,I’ve now read your post and understand what it is and may try it out. Thanks for sharing!

  37. flowingbass says:

    While deep freeze protects your system bigtime, when it fails, it fails catastrophically same thing that a virus infection will leave you with, which might be formatting your system.

    dont get me wrong deep freeze is a breeze to use, installs in less than a minute restarts your system automatically, set up your password and you are good to go. thaw when you need to change something then freeze when you’re done. no complicated knowledge required to use and maintain.

    I had deepfreeze for around a month installed with a year old vista business 32bit installation. got it working fine. till i had the constant inconvinience need to thaw and freeze cycle for my antivirus, windows updates and other programs that need updating frequently to install permanently. You need to restart everytime you need to thaw, then restart again to freeze. that can be a real pain. specially if you use a lot of programs at the same time needing to close and open them everytime you need to do some changes to your system. only if deep freeze had an instant freeze and thaw without restarting.

    And very recently (the day before i wrote this), after installing some programs and updating some old ones, i restarted to freeze the system then i got the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH! when my pc got back on with an error indicating “deepfreeze.sys xxxx00xxxerrorcodexxx -timestamp xxsomethingsomethingxx”.

    It seemed that deep freeze had an invalid time stamp or snapshot of my system that made my system go to blue screen. first time ever i had with my one year old installation vista. Or something else.

    I did nothing wrong with updating my virus definitions and installing some windows defender definitions (which is also regarded as a windows update). and updated my flash player. i just simply did a routine update of my system when the blue screen appeared that was caused by deep freeze. i was completely taken aback by that.

    if you were a noob using deep freeze and you encounter this you definitely freak out about what to do, specially that the blue screen appears right before windows loads up leaving you with no obvious options to remedy the problem.

    Luckily, a simple press of F8 and a choice of “last known good configuration” fixed the problem. windows loads and deepfreeze seems to be working. unless you restart again then the blue screen appears again.

    Even if you choose to thaw the next restart the blue screen still appears.

    so i uninstalled deep freeze using its own installer and installed it back again (risking my main vista pc). so far no problems arised after i reinstalled and several restarts thawed or freezed just to check.

    So im really not sure what caused deep freeze to cause a blue screen with my vista business 32bit pc. i really dont have a clue! so far its working right now with deep freeze activated.

    and thats one experience i have with deep freeze. nothing more to come i hope.

    • I’m wondering why you’re still using junky antivirus and defender software when DeepFreeze makes its usage dispensable? That could have been the cause.

      Also, once you installed something remember to restart your computer once again before putting it back into the frozen state, even if a certain installation doesn’t require a restart.

      ~Marcus

      • Lonewulf says:

        Marcus, you have given some good advice and some bad advice. Deepfreeze is a good product when used & installed properly. We have it installed on 80 computers at the school where I work as the Network Admin. Deepfreeze will restore a computer to a clean state if that is how it was “frozen”. However, Deepfreeze is NOT an anti spyware or anti virus product. If you get a worm or an IP aware malware on your pc, it can propagate to other computers on your network or home workgroup. To advise that you do not need an anti virus, anti malware product or Windows Update Patches is bad advice and not true. You still need to keep these items up to date. Especially with the IP aware type of malware that is circulating around the Internet. Please modify your statements to reflect this. Otherwise you are leading people to the conclusion that Deepfreeze is a one stop solution to all of these problems, which it is not. Thank you.

        • d2 says:

          I am at a school with DF on the computers. Whenver any type of virus is reported on a computer with DF, we restart and it is fine – we can check the network system and haven’t had a problem yet by doing this. Perhaps we just haven’t been hit with something that DF can’t stop…

  38. draude says:

    men this such a great help for me… i own a small computer shop and everyday i hate to see some of the settings, file, desktop are changed. thanks men for ur help, i owe you one for that…. thanks men!

  39. Bobby says:

    I work for a school who uses Deep Freeze on the computers in our labs. I worked with this school before we started using Deep Freeze and what a fiasco it would be to try and keep the systems even somwhat similar. With Deep Freeze we do use antivirus software which gets all updates when booting in the thatwed state. With Deep Freeze we are able to do Windows updates from a Windows SUS server because Deep Freeze will boot the computer in Maintenance Mode in order for the computer to connect to the SUS Server in order to update. I have seen a few issues with Deep Freeze but for the most part it has been a product for us over the 6 o 7 years we have used it.

  40. noorain.02 says:

    i m a multi medea expert and i was suffering from different types of problem in my o/s and after its use i m blazed..

  41. bian says:

    i like DeepFreeze :)
    I do not need anti-virus, but sometimes I forget to save the data in c: / so my file is lost :(

    from new best friend

  42. tecky says:

    Hello,

    I love the program as I do work in a community library, but could it be that it is causing my xp home edition to be slow on wireless internet as the pages are really loading slow/ Please help on how i can avoid the pages from loading slowly

  43. levnoj says:

    Hi,

    I’ve read your review about deep freeze and somehow i now understand how it is working. But if im using an online game everyday and it is automatically downloading patches every week, what should i do then? Please tell me some tips for this. thanks.

  44. krishna says:

    how should i disabled my deep freeze

    • janus says:

      Hold down the shift button and double click the icon on the taskbar and it’ll ask you for your password if you have one and choose freeze or thaw the drive. hope this help.

  45. rikk says:

    My antivirus really slows down my laptop, I reinstalled my Windows and formatted it, then, I installed Deep Freeze. Now, I’m facing a question. I want to get rid of the antivirus keeping the Deep Freeze frozing the C partition, where is Windows. I have 3 partitions, C:/ with Windows is frozen while D and E are not. I want to avoid keyloggers, viruses, spyware. IS THERE OK to remove the antivirus, having the C:/ partition frozen, and keep my PC safe? Any keylogger, virus, spyware would work on the unfrozen partition (D and E)? If I get a keylogger, spyware, virus, it would work until I reboot my PC? I’m worried about that a keylogger would work on C:/ until I reboot. Unfortunately this program let you to copy something on a frozen partition. Please help me out. Thank You.

  46. David says:

    Do the anti-virus cause some slowing your our pc?? Because my pc got too slow :((

  47. David says:

    Sir,

    Where could I install DeepFreeze???
    pls reply. thank you..

  48. patrick says:

    Supposedly, we have deep-freeze installed on our machines at the math lab here.

    When we restart . . . we either get one of two messages and the computer never comes back to a usable working order of operation again . . . saying . . .

    “Windows is shutting down’ or ‘Windows is starting up’ . . . but never ever getting anywhere . . . until the computer geek comes by and makes them to work again.

    What is going on, please?

    Thanks!

    GOD Bless us all.

  49. William says:

    That sounds like a great program, I will have to check it out. I recently had some virus problems and problems with my anti-virus. Could have been avoided it looks like.

  50. Jim says:

    I use deep freeze. Also use Sky Drive so if I need to write or save stuff while in DF I can store it there. I use GData AV along with several anti spyware etc programs which I keep turned off and use them as a right click scanner. That way you can download stuff, scan with all Av programs, Then insert memory stick and copy. I you use DF and download stuff to external drive without AV installed your external drive gets infected then when you unfreeze your main system becomes infected. I use Immunet Protect & Threat Fire, as secondary AV, Spy bot, Malware bytes, SAS, Spyware Blaster, Nod32 free scanner, Bit defender free,Trend Micro,Adaware, Zone Alarm forcefield & ZA firewall,Spambox.us etc etc and all my scans always come out 0 infections how boring.

  51. Bobby Kotro says:

    Helle Everyone,

    I have been using deepfreeze for some time now, and love it. I know there are other products that offer similar protection, however how many of them offer a 100% guarantee ;-)

    Also, Faronics offer a small utility called “Data Igloo”

    http://www.faronics.com/en/Products/DataIgloo.aspx

    What this does it ‘redirect’ folders on your computer.

    For e.g. If you freeze C:\ and Have D:\ Unprotected, you can redirect folders such as “My documents” or your web browsers folders to D:\Mydocuments etc etc. This saves you time in configuring the redirection thru TweakUI etc and is a much simpler interface. It also allows you to use your computer ‘almost’ the way you did before deepfreeze.

    I have a folder called “Stuff” on my desktop that i use to save alot of temporary or random files, i simply have that folder redirected to “d:\Stuff” and any time i drag a file into the “Stuff” Folder on my desktop it actually saves it on D:\Stuff. This means i can use my computer as normal without constantly having to change all my habbits.

  52. goldin rajesh says:

    how to install deep freeze on 1tb hdd

  53. Hindiikawayos says:

    deep freeze is wonderful. However, If I install or delete some program, can I DEFRAG or can I use the “clean up disk”?

  54. Harry4jpotter says:

     deep freeze is more effective than you say it saves me more time because I used to have to wipe my computer every week or even every few days because the computer would slowdown as soon as I went to website that was bad now my computer is stable I can communicate with people I’m not a complete outsider I can even write  this comments because  of the time that deep-freeze saves it makes Macintosh work the way it’s supposed to even when your Mac is under fire from nasties on the web it means that even if I see a  webpage that’s been completely destroyed if I reboot my computer the webpage will reappear when I revisited exactly the same way as it should so it saves me a lot of time and effort normally I would have to expand a lot of time reinstalling all of my settings only to find my computer destroyed again in a very short amount of time this is why deep-freeze is effective however I would  like to also find a way to completely cut off  remote access to my computer because I don’t want anyone to be able to move my mouse cursor around or mess with my computer remotely without my knowledge sometimes it makes it slow for my computer to boot but because of deep freeze my computer at least works and my computer stops giving me immense disquiet
     sincerely
    Alex Treviranus

  55. Mcnest143 says:

    yap this one works , now I have to fi it myself s I was noly relying to my IT tech before.

  56. Ej_quiao says:

    YOU dont need to install or download any kind of updatedantivirus or, DEEPFREEZED. Simply go to the mall and buy newcomputers, When your current PC already have any kind ofproblems.

    that is ? If you’re rich? hahaha just joking men!! deepfreeze is very nice and i used it!! 

  57. Noc_svt says:

    will deep freeze can affect win timer’s performance?

  58. Y2043 says:

    Thanks for this review.  For home computer users, they should at least do a per-use back-up of  My Documents, and have favorite software disks/files on hand (put the  .exe files in My Documents, in Folder like ” exe Files”.   When some goon ruins your computer back to Day 1, you basically only have to do all the Microsoft Updayes. 
       The Internet will  never  be as safe/reliable as land line Ma Bell Co. in the 1970s, I’m very sad to say. 

  59. matt says:

    hey men! i just want to install a ga,e but if i install it when i turn off the computer and open it again the that i install was lost and i need to install it again…..

    my question is how to turn off permanently the deepfreeze
    so ican install the game and after that i will activate again?

    answer pls ASAP………………………….
    09235687457 dis is my contact no.if have tym just txt me the answer on my prob.
    thanks buddy!

  60. Marky_5055416 says:

    nice….. maybe i”ll also give it a try…….

  61. Johney Basalo says:

    I don’t have deep freeze, and i don’t know how to instal it… anyone can you help me  ?

  62. Ibrachuhan says:

    Asalam-u-Eleakum Brothers,
                                                                    I have a problem “that i have 1TB hard disk  and the deep freez sofware does not run, it display the message “Deep Freeze does not support hard disks over 2TB’s.” ” can any one send the software which support 1TB Hard disk.

  63. niceone says:

    i only got 1tb and still got an error not supported 2tb when installing df…pls help..

  64. nets says:

    thanx for your detailed review and can you give a complete tutorial to setup DISQUS COMMENT box. i m new in web design and not able to set this for my website which have some electronics tutorial ………

  65. Winston says:

    Been using DF for 3 years already. No AV needed. DF can be of big help. I swear. :)

  66. KnightsOFheaveN Guild Master says:

    i used deep freze in may cafe..before i didnt..it save my money in technician..till now im using deep freeze in my laptop..im happy now coz i dont need anti virus software in my laptop.

  67. KnightsOFheaveN GuildMaster says:

    i recoment to other people here..best to protect your system use deep freeze.but first you need two partition for system file and data file for your   file to be save or delete…frozen your system drive..im sure you dont need to worry about virus or unwanted spyware….for more info.just visit there website im sure you will be happy like me..

  68. Adele says:

    Right now i’m searching for the protecting system that would protect the computer by freezing its original configuration.  I haven’t thought about Deep Freeze before and hope it will live up to expectations.

  69. rajiv says:

    DEEP FREEZE IS TH BEST TOOL 2 PROTECT A PC

  70. JuneBug says:

    The first I learned of Deep Freeze is at the school I attend; all the computers there are protected by DF. After learning what it does, I was enthralled that I could possibly dump the impossibly huge system images I was storing (that were taken on a fresh system). After a few months of using Deep Freeze, I very quickly became disenchanted with a complete reset of EVERYTHING. I frequently forgot to unfreeze for minor updates or bookmarks. I eventually uninstalled DF and went back to using system images, which basically accomplished the same thing as DF except the restoration happened on my command  rather than automatically on reboot. For those using Deep Freeze for IT purposes, I can see how it would be a great help, but for the average home user system imaging might be a better option. It all comes down to personal preference. I recommend at least trying Deep Freeze once; seems like Marcus really likes it!

    BTW… thanks Marcus for breaking it all down, it answered at lot of questions I had months ago before first trying it. This article was the deciding factor that pushed me into testing it.

  71. Gcabz says:

    What happen to your PC if you installed DF at the same time AVIRA (for example)?

    • Joan_11 says:

      sir Gcabz i have a question….if i have a deepfreeze but it freeze then when i update some files in my computer..is it possible to get a virus in updating..? 

  72. Jhoanna says:

    can you help me? i have download picture in the libraries but forgot to freeze then i unfreeze after restarting my pictures are gone…Can i retrieve my pictures again?

  73. Jones says:

    This seems rather useful, although I have tried quite a lot of methods to protect my PC none were as effective as this! For this and other helpful articles you have my thanks!

  74. Petrus says:

    Hi Marcus,
    I have too do a clean install on my PC in the near future and would like have some clarity on a few matters;

    First question:
    If I install DF on the freshly installed OS, the PC will then in effect stay that way for each restart. What happens if windows or one of my other programs want to update? If I understand it correctly you can unfreeze the pc to allow for updates that will then become part of the “frozen” settings. What happens if a virus slips in during an update?

    Second question:
    If only my primary drive with my OS and all other big programs (like MS Office) are frozen and “protected”, what happens to the drives that I store data on that`s downloaded from the internet? Will I then still need an Anti Virus program to scan them for viruses? What do you suggest?

    Am I correct in thinking that DF is only OK for browsing on the internet, but not actually for people (like me) who download lots of media from the internet? Please correct me if I am wrong.
    Thank you

  75. There’s no problem in my computer.

    My Deep Freeze is still working.

  76. KevinS says:

    We have Been using a Great software which is a direct competitor to Deep freeze, its called Drive vaccine, and works much better then deep freeze, easier to use, cheaper and No annual fee. So far we have had no issues with drive vaccine, we use to use Deep freeze and its a pain for thaw and to do updates etc.

  77. Beezus17 says:

    Can anyone plss help me after i install the deep freeze at my 2pcs it truns black when i restarted it how to fix it plss even in safemode its only black :((( pls dont tell that i need to format it again :( plss

  78. Substorm says:

    I think this is only good for strict public/corporate environments but horrible for your standard day-to-day computer.
    Why not have full control of when a backup is made and when it’s restored? I’ve been using AX64 TimeMachine for this purpose and it’s simply hard to beat. The backup/restore speed is just ridiculous. You could even backup to external drive in case of HD failure but I just use a second partition for that. It can run live while working in windows. If you can’t boot into windows, it allows you to make a boot disk.

    • Substorm says:

      Forgot to add: it’s best to relocate all of your data (Documents, Pictures, Videos, even Desktop) to another partition that is not included in the TimeMachine backup. This way, when you recover, it never affects your data. Simple and quick! That’s how I like it. lol

  79. Jerwen Laag says:

    FOR ME .. DEEP FREEZE IS SO AMAZING :)

  80. Markuis says:

    I have been a user of Deep Freeze for a while and its a great basic restore utility that restores your pc on every reboot, however I came across another product similar called Rollback RX which allows you to have many baselines as a pose to Deep Freeze which only has one.

  81. RexM says:

    Help me please.
    I installed deep freeze standard in my pc. May hard disk has 4 partitions (C,D,E,F). I did not froze drive F during installation because I have some LAN games(like Plants versus Zombies, NBA 2K14, etc) that I like to play during free time.
    The problem is that whenever I restart/shutdown my pc, the “updated games” from drive F are not saved and I have to create new player profile and play the game again from the beginning.
    Please help me with my concern. Thanks

  82. kyang says:

    When someone is trying to UNFREEZE your computer by using anti deep freeze, how can you stop them?

  83. jim says:

    pitty that deep freeze do not have a clear price policy.”Contact us to give you the price” – so I went to shadowdefender.com.
    Pitty, pitty deep freeze would be my first choice, but I do not like “unclear” price policy and I wanted solve it in 20 min (not waiting for contacting me with a price)

  84. Giby Kuriakose says:

    I have been using deep freeze for last two years. I now face a problem that I am not able to copy files to my external drives, including USB and external hard drives (segate). Please let me know whether I should reinstall my deep freeze or make some other changes?
    Thanks

    • Could it be that you installed a newer version of DF? Because nowadays there’s an option to keep external drives in the thawed state — and a second similar option for newly discovered drives.

  85. Giby Kuriakose says:

    Someone please answer my query. Thanks

  86. Afsal says:

    A very much usefull detailed review, whatever i want to know about deep freez,i got from here,thank you so much.

  87. Romeo Jeff says:

    Hello, I have been using deep freeze for some time now. But i keep facing this issue of not being able to store or save a file on the partition i used the deep freeze on after i uninstalled it.

    After uninstalling the Deep Freeze, I couldn’t save files on the disk or even delete; this occurs after I restart the machine. Each time I restart after either deleting or saving I don’t get the action (save/delete) to work.

    Please help, i want to be able to save or delete files as i was able to.

  88. rakeshkumar says:

    after deep feeze all the drive including ‘c’ drive and installing important windows update then these updates are installed or not, please suggest

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