I used to work in IT for a community college and one of the largest problems these type of environments have to deal with is the classroom configuration for computers. One professor would teach their class and students would learn how to change options in Microsoft Office or Windows and the next class would be met with 25 computers all configured differently.

Additionally, some users would decide that they knew what wallpaper would be good for the computer and the next user would be greeted by an image they are – to this day, still trying to get out of their head.

Several products have been introduced to solve this problem and Deep Freeze is one of the most popular. Microsoft also released a product to combat unwanted changes specifically for multi-user environments called SteadyState. It is a free download for WindowsXP and can reset all of the configurations on your computer every time it reboots.

Even if programs are installed or files are deleted, everything is returned to the way you set it every time you reboot.