Posts by Sandra Davis7

How much RAM and virtual memory does a virtual machine actually eat up compared to just running standard Windows? I guess we're working with really limited RAM on our machines, and I'm a bit worried that SSD space might run dry eventually once Windows updates start rolling in. Would setting up a server, assigning domains, and spinning up VMs on these computers end up being too heavy on our resources?

We're a private call center handling inbound calls for a massive telecom giant. Most of us run one specific app, but the hardware is just... weak. Seriously, the RAM is struggling. I'm just typing this right now and the service app is running in the background, and my CPU Meter shows we're already sitting at 73% RAM usage. Of course, apps keep crashing, and we constantly get those annoying alerts saying memory is low and we should probably just restart the PC. So, I'm trying to find a way to optimize things, but I can't just download whatever I want. Even if people do download stuff, I want to make sure that data doesn't stick around and clog up the RAM and memory the next day. There's also the issue of the director—he definitely doesn't want people browsing YouTube or anything like that while they're on the clock, so he wants a fix. They tried blocking YouTube, but I ended up launching Tor to bypass all the restrictions. Now, the Tor browsers have been wiped from all the machines, so everyone is back to watching YouTube freely. That could have landed me in hot water, but since they heard I'm a computer science student and might actually know how to fix things, they decided to bring me on as an admin. So, here I am, looking for a solution to 😁

I'm honestly not sure how I'm supposed to handle downloading torrents; I just recently got tasked with administering these machines, and I haven't really dealt with this stuff before. I feel a bit more comfortable with routers and switches, though I guess I'm still pretty much a rookie there too. Anyway, aside from using this Deep Freeze app—which seems like a solid option right now—is it actually possible to convert the workgroup into a domain so I can manage them through Active Directory or something similar? Right now, each computer is just its own thing running standard Windows 7. They aren't connected to a Windows server or anything like that, so I'm wondering if a third-party app like Deep Freeze is my only real move here?

They don't have admin rights—I do. They really don't need anything besides their specific work apps, and I definitely don't plan on touching those. It’s fine if they download PDFs for themselves; that isn't the issue. I can't exactly force them to delete everything immediately, though, so files just pile up until I start getting low memory alerts. Plus, there's all kinds of stuff like torrents, poker sites, you name it. As for blocking installations, I end up having to manually block every single program I catch them downloading one by one. And it's a constant cycle—once a new version of an app comes out, they can download it again, and I have to go from machine to machine all over again. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but if I am, please tell me: how can I just block all software installations permanently? Sorry, but please don't lecture me on what I should or shouldn't allow my coworkers to do. Their computers are meant to run one specific application smoothly, not crash because they won't or don't know how to clear their history or the movies they downloaded that day. Like I said, they can download what they want, but the data shouldn't just sit there clogging things up. I'm stuck cleaning up after them on nearly 100 🙂
different machines.

Hey everyone, I’ve got a bit of a situation at work I need to tackle. We have a bunch of machines running Windows 7, and my main Windows 7 goal is to keep them totally clean. I really want to stop users from cluttering everything up with files they grab from the web or via USB drives. I was thinking maybe I could handle this by setting up some rules in the Task Scheduler, so basically, every time a computer boots up, it just wipes out all the data my colleagues saved the day before. Am I on the right track with using Task Scheduler for this? If anyone knows a better way to get this done, let me know. Thanks!