[Discuss] how to manage a bunch of ms boxes?

[markw at mohawksoft.com]

While I have mostly washed my hands, as of late, of Windows in general,
the problem is that you are starting with a "non-managed" environment and
wish to move to a managed environment. That's next to impossible.

One suggestion is to split the disk drive on all the machines, one for
Linux and one for Windows. Boot to Linux to backup or restore the Windows
partition. When the user's screw up the Windows environment, just boot to
Linux and restore the backup.


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> Hi All,
>
> I have a public computer lab with a little under 40 windows PCs.  The
> teachers and students are always finding novel ways to break them.
> They must run Windows.  As the sole IT guy in our org keeping these
> machines working is eating up too much of my time.
>
> Does anybody have any suggestions on how to keep these boxes running?
>
> Here's what I'm currently thinking of doing.  Install Ubuntu and
> virtualbox on all of them.  Upon automatic login a shell script starts
> that checks for the latest windows image.  If the PC already has the
> latest image then start virtualbox in full screen mode else download
> image and then start vb.  This way every user has the same exact
> 'computer'.  It will make my life and the teachers lives easier.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Thanks,
> Eric
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