Restore Windows 10 Partition on every boot to previously defined state

Question

we, a non profit youth center, are running a view windows 10 Pro computers on which the kids can play and research. Because of the limited time of the volunteers to maintain these computers, we are looking for a technology to restore the Windows 10 installations to a previously defined state/snapshot on every boot.

We tried cloning the hole disk tools like CloneZilla, but todays disk sizes take forever to restore a complete partition. We also tried software like Reboot Restore Rx, but windows updates and in particular the Windows version updates (i.e. 1709 -> 1803) are no fun to handle with this software and need a lot of time and attention.

So we need a easy to handle solution that

• restores a Windows 10 Pro partition ...
• within a decent amount of time
• on every reboot
• is easy to maintain ...
• and update when there are windows updates available
• it should also be cheap or free

I read something about Microsofts build in volume shadow copy. I found out how to manually crate a new shadow copy of the partition.

vmic shadowcopy call create Volume=C:\

But how to restore the last created shadow copy on every reboot? Or are there any better solutions available?

Answer 1

In Windows 10 v. 1607, MS introduced the shared PC concept, which is "management- and maintenance-free with high reliability... You can apply shared PC mode to Windows 10 Pro, Pro Education, Education, and Enterprise." Administration of shared PC's, however, is non-trivial and requires that they're joined to an Active Directory or Azure Active Directory. For more detail, see also Shared PC mode for school devices.

That said, have you thought of using an OS other than Windows 10? Some, such as Linux, can easily fit on a single DVD or USB drive to enable complete and rapid restoration of a system to the initial state:

• Create a DVD or USB flash drive with a Live image of the OS. Students could access the HDD, if mounted, and store data there, but each time the DVD is booted, the OS is restored. Updates would require burning new DVD's, though.
• Create a USB drive with a Live image of the OS and persistence. The OS and student files would live on the USB, which could be set aside for each student, or the USB drive could be recreated in ~1/2 hour for new students. Updates could be applied to the USB drive. N.B. Flash drives are slow compared to HDD, so the system is less responsive unless high-speed SSD's are used, which could run US$40 or more per drive.

Answer 2

In most organizations I've worked for this was achieved using paid software. Deep freeze is probably the most common on windows, I am not aware of the license cost but I don't think It will be very high with you requirements.

With this kind of software writes are redirected to a volatile section of the disk, so base installation and filesystem remains unaltered. Seems to cover all of your requirements except the last. This solutions have some disadvantages, like having to manually unfreeze/freeze to install updates frequently (otherwise they have to be downloaded and installed again on every boot, slowing down everything by a lot).

It is much faster than a full disk restore on each boot, and most average users won't be able to break anything.