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Is SteadyState 2.5 Worth an Upgrade?

23 Sep 2008 - 1:24pm | Chris Peters
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A few years ago I worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s U.S. Library Program help desk, where I fielded thousands of calls about the peculiar difficulties of making a computer available for public use. Later when Microsoft released Windows SteadyState 2.0 (formerly known as the Shared Computer Toolkit), a free program that protects public computers and makes them easier to manage, I wrote some articles on how to install it and configure it. So when Microsoft released SteadyState 2.5 this summer, I was curious to try it out.

The big news in this version is support for Windows Vista. SteadyState 2.0 only worked on Windows XP, but version 2.5 works on both operating systems. Beyond that I didn’t see any major changes to the interface or the functionality. However, Windows Disk Protection turns on and off faster now, and there’s more support for IE7. The previous version of SteadyState worked with IE7, but there were problems with tabbed browsing and you couldn’t hide the command bar. On the other hand, two of the common complaints about SteadyState 2.0 haven’t been fixed in this new version. In order to save to the desktop from MS Office programs, you still have to unhide the C:\ drive. Also, there’s no fast, easy way to remove and reapply all of your user settings, unless you rely entirely on one of the predefined restriction templates (e.g. high restrictions, medium restrictions, etc.).

On the whole, if you have SteadyState 2.0 on your XP machines and you’re happy with it, I don’t see any compelling reason to upgrade at this point, unless you’ve been really frustrated by the lack of IE7 controls.

However, I have to make clear that I’ve only done a few hours of testing and some light Web research. I’d love to hear from librarians, lab managers and anyone else who’s had had a chance to really put the new version through its paces. Do you see any significant improvements? Would you recommend upgrading to version 2.5? Does the Vista version differ from the XP version (I don’t have a Vista machine to test on around here)?

For more information on SteadyState, check out the official documentation and How to Use Window’s SteadyState 2.0 on your Library’s Public Access Computers. For an overview of securing public computers, and a list of the commercial programs that compete with SteadyState, see Securing Your Computers for a Public Computing Environment. For an in-depth discussion of managing public computers, with an emphasis on library environments, download Chapter Two of the Cookbook for Small and Rural Libraries.

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Steady State 2.5

Submitted by Dan Will (not verified) on 3 October 2008 - 5:22am.
Hey Chris, sorry that I haven't had a chance to comment until now. Being in the middle of the yearly update of computers and software can take me away from everything else. As I noted to you in our previous conversation, we have migrated all of our staff and all patron pcs at the main and one branch, to Vista. We waited to do this until SS 2.5 came out of beta. I personally like 2.5 better than 2.0. Don't ask me what I am basing that on, it's subjective just like all opinions. One thing that I have discovered the hard way, deals with SS & cloning of drives. I had 30 pcs that we wanted identically setup. So I setup the first one and cloned the drives of the others. I had installed SS and created the profiles. These pcs are not domain joined computers, just workgroup stand-alones. I did not set the drive protection. Booted the clone and changed the computer name and changed the IP address and rebooted. When I logged into the profiles, they would not load and nothing was as it had been on the cloned pc. After a lot of head scratching (and headbanging against my desk & the wall) I realized that changing the pc name is what caused the problem. The SS profile uses the computer name during creation. Changing the computer name back, fixes the profile. So, what do you do? Use SS on the pc AFTER it's been cloned and renamed to create the profiles and DON"T copy a canned set of shortcuts to the profile (I tried that as a time saver and it wasn't. It's a computer name thing). Over all, SS 2.5 on Vista & XP is a winner in my book. I am sure that there are little quirks that I haven't run into yet but, I've been using it with good success now for about 6 months. Dan Will Technology Supervisor Meigs Co. Dist. Public Library Pomeroy, Ohio

SteadyState, Vista and Cloning

Submitted by Chris Peters on 3 October 2008 - 9:17am.

Awesome. It's good to hear that some libraries are making the leap to Vista, though with the dwindling XP support, I'm curious to know if you jumped or if you were pushed? Or a little of both? But the early complaints about Vista seem to have tailed off as Microsoft fixed the bugs and hardware companies released more drivers. I'm waiting for MS to ship me a copy actually and I plan to install it at home in the next few weeks. Do you have a preference between Vista and XP?

Your comments about cloning remind me of a problem I had with SS 2.0 on XP. If I remember, I locked the profiles before cloning and that led to a complete do-over. That was a known bug though -- I should have read the manual.

Thanks again for the advice -- I love it when folks share their "headbanging moments" and their subsequent "doh, eureka moments".

Is SteadyState 2.5 Worth an Upgrade?

Submitted by Dan Will (not verified) on 2 December 2008 - 6:51am.
Once again........sorry I took so long to reply ;^{ I was pushed (lightly) by our Director. She wanted to update to Vista & Office 2007. It was an interesting challenge, that I was looking forward to. I was NOT interested in putting Vista out for our patrons until SS 2.5 was ready for prime time though. It took me a LOT longer to get everything done (to my satisfaction) than I thought it would. Of course Microsoft did not help matters any. They decided that they needed to upgrade their knowledge base site at the same time. Every step I took during the switch took me to a KB article that was not available for about a week. That was pure frustration at it's worst. Especially while setting up roaming profiles on Vista for our staff. We are running server 2003 not 2008. 2003 doesn't understand V.2 profiles and It took me a couple of days of Googling to find that out and find the fix. Anyway, I have XP at home running on an AMD 2200xp+ and Vista at work. I suppose that if I had the hardware at home & the $$$ I might put Vista on it. I personally think that MS has made a step in the right direction with regards to user rights and user profiles. When the programmers get their act together and write programs that do not install files in the %system% directory that requires write access for users, then Vista will be more pleasant for the average user. This I think will help Vista and W7. This is a security model that Linux has used for years. So it's a matter of hardware & required software. I had hoops to jump through to get TLC's L.Solution to work on Vista. TLC gave me the info needed to make it work but then, said...."We won't support it". Par for the course. ;^) Dan

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