"groundhog day" XP machine (*XP loads the same every time it boots)

[Exahertz]

I couldn't think of a better way to explain it then using the movie "groundhog day" as an example where no matter what happens to the OS while your are using it, when it reboots it will always load exactly the same (without the changes made earlier) as it did at some predefined point.

sort of like booting off of a live CD where the OS is a ROM and every time you load it, its exactly the same as before.

I need to make one of my small XP partitions on my hard drive do this. so no matter what happens in the file system or registry it will not reflect those changes when it reboots.

any ideas?

[Exahertz]

I did find this: RecoveryStar Crash Recovery PCI Card for PC (http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.2896),

Do you think this would work?

[Heretic]

Windows SteadyState:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_SteadyState
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

or Deep Freeze if you have a copy of that lying around

[Hoboclese]

my sisters uni laptop did that bloody annoying. why would you want that?

[Exahertz]

Windows SteadyState:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_SteadyState
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/sharedaccess/default.mspx

or Deep Freeze if you have a copy of that lying around

Thank you for those suggestions! i tried both.

starting with Deep Freeze - its a piece of junk, not only do they charge for it, but if you load another OS and make changes to the one deep freeze is installed on, those changes are reflected when the "Frozen" OS is loaded. it would be good enough for the partition that my fiancee uses but that's it... its not very secure for people running multiple OS's on a single computer as a virus could easily hide in your "Frozen" partition (most bio-viruses can survive in frozen water, why not a frozen OS too???)

Windows SteadyState - Absolutely perfect for my needs! and its free!!! :D It requires quite a bit of HD space to use it, but that's the beauty of it. it makes a copy of the entire partition and saves it as a single cache file on the same partition. every time windows is loaded, it boots from that cache file. there is no easy way to access the contents of that cache file from non-local means as its some sort of proprietary format. its easily managed and integrates well into XP and adds some new nifty features. Thanks Heretic for shearing that one with me. I will be using that for years to come!

my sisters uni laptop did that bloody annoying. why would you want that?

Because i like it :p:

[Exahertz]

[Update]

Windows stablestate - it was working great until today... Now every time i boot it says that the partition protection (OS Cache) is off. i command it to turn back on, reboot and its off again!!! :( There is no way i have found to keep it on either.

when i first setup stablestate and turned on the partition protection, i made a backup of the cache file. i tried replacing the cache file while i was logged on to another OS, then i rebooted and the original cache file somehow loaded.

I now have to format that partition and start over as some of the changes i made (unknowingly while the protection was "off") can not be restored.

----

Does anyone know of any other programs similar to stable state??? or why stable state is not so stable? I have been logging on as an administrator, but it was working fine for a few reboots, and i dont know when it stopped working as i didnt check it every time...

OH and BTW. I tried uninstalling it, but it says that "partition protection" must be disabled, while it clearly says it already is (and it doesn't have the "extra-off" option).
so its un-uninstallable......................

[scottc19]

I use deepfreeze at school for all the computers I manage, it works but its a pain...