This is the notion of "freezing" Windows in time, such that it can work as-expected but be "rolled back" to a previous state.
https://web.archive.org/*/social.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home?forum=windowssteadystate
I'm also lumping similar projects into this page, for reference.
See also:
Steady State ∞
Windows SteadyState [discontinued] does imaging which is disk-intensive.
- Group Policy Settings for Creating a Steady State
- Creating a Steady State by Using Microsoft Technologies
What one guy does:
- Symbolic link user folders and data to equivalents on
D:
and continue keeping their documents on the NAS. - SafeGuard / Guest Mode the user accounts and use Disk Protection on the
C:
Drive to revert the contents on reboot. -
Use AppLocker to eliminate the possibility of running anything un-sanctioned.
Similar tools ∞
-
Windows has Shadow Copy, which is a per-file history feature.
- Windows 8.1
- Windows 10 hid it, but it's still there.
- Clean Slate
-
- I believe I had used this far in the past.
- Decent, but it looks like I'd probably want their anti-executable product too, and maybe a third app. Hrm.
-
- requires internet access. lolwut?
-
- Doesn't seem good to me..
-
Horizon DataSys - Disaster Recovery
- Snapshot-based, not what I want?
-
- Snapshot-based, can boot those shapshots as virtual machines, neat!
-
Comodo Time Machine [gone]
- Was free, snapshot-based
- Does not support SSD/TRIM! Cannot install with a Linux partition visable!
- https://web.archive.org/*/www.comodo.com/home/data-storage-encryption/data-recovery.php
-
Wondershare Time Freeze 2.0 [gone]
- Virtual system software for 32&64-bit Windows 7/XP/Vista
- https://web.archive.org/web/20130818085133/http://www.wondershare.com:80/pro/time-freeze.html
-
Norton GoBack
- (previously known as WildFile GoBack, Adaptec GoBack, and Roxio GoBack)
- Deep Freeze was certainly superior to this.
Last updated 2020-07-14 at 20:06:31
added some more ancient notes