UWF/Deep Freeze Alternatives

[GrimSniper]

Hey Everyone!

 

First time poster, long time Youtube watcher.

I am looking for a (free preferred) Windows 11 pro option for Unified Write Filter/Deep Freeze option for some HP laptops that im setting up for a local YMCA. They want the users to be able to use the internet freely, Office apps, downloads, etc, but when the machine is restarted, everything goes back to how it was originally set up. So any settings or downloads are gone. These laptops will be used by the public.

 

Any help is highly appreciated! 

[NinJake]

Welcome to the LTT forums!

 

Deep Freeze is such a good solution for this, but I understand the Y may not want to cover the costs... but you will be paying for the simplicity of management and peace of mind that the machines are working as intended.

 

In the past, I had also deployed machines with an operating system called "Porteus Kiosk" which also had these same capabilities. It is a custom linux distro however a few years ago they switched from being free to requiring a subscription. You can find out more info about porteus here if interested (https://porteus-kiosk.org/) 

 

A more expensive option (unless the Y already has some sort of microsoft licensing bundle, is the windows 10/11 IoT OS. With some powershell scripts you can lock down quite a bit, however I'd have to do some further digging to see if there's any way we can natively (and easily) revert the OS back to a "saved state" upon restart or after a designated period of inactivity on the machine. (I currently have a similar solution to this deployed at some workstations where the ONLY thing the machine is capable of doing is accessing a specific web page/domain)