Deep Freeze on Mac vs. Windows: Key Differences Every IT Admin Should Know

Are you a Mac maniac or more of a Windows wizard? Or maybe you prefer one system for your personal devices and use the other at work? Perhaps you’re just not bothered and will use either?

Wherever you fall on the Mac–Windows spectrum, Faronics can deliver the protection and security you need. Deep Freeze works perfectly well on Mac and Windows devices. It’s equally effective on either operating system — equal, but not identical. There are differences in how Deep Freeze operates, and it’s worth learning this so you can optimize it for your preferred operating system.

What Is Deep Freeze?

Deep Freeze by Faronics is a solution that can make computers indestructible. How? Deep Freeze can eliminate any unwanted system changes from occurring. It’s a bold claim, but Deep Freeze can back it up with our patented Reboot-To-Restore technology.

Reboot To Restore

How often have you sat despondently staring at your computer screen, wishing you could just go back in time by a day, an hour or even 15 minutes, and undo something you did or didn’t do? Those of us old enough to remember the days before autosave can probably empathize, remembering an occasion when all or part of a document was lost to time because of a random power outage or other calamity. 

And many of us can also recall the awful feeling of realizing we clicked on a dodgy link or downloaded a corrupted file and trying to deal with the aftermath. But just as autosave has greatly reduced the occurrences of lost document progress, Deep Freeze can make security protocol lapses a non-issue. With Deep Freeze, you can put applications and files on a Frozen drive, meaning they will always reset to a predetermined pristine state.

Did an employee fall for a phishing scam? Has a hacker breached your organization’s defenses with malice aforethought? Maybe your kid messed around with your work laptop while you were on a phone call, making who knows what changes? Don’t worry, Deep Freeze can fix it. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Turn your computer off.
2. Turn it back on.

And that’s it. Everything on the Frozen drive will be just as it was before the incident occurred.

What Deep Freeze Brings to the Table

Deep Freeze is available in on-premise and cloud versions. Each version allows you to create virtual partitions to retain important data even without a separate physical partition available on the computer. It’s also easy to deploy, configure and manage Deep Freeze computers across different locations from a single interface.

Deep Freeze on Mac

Deep Freeze provides the ultimate Mac OS X protection, leveraging Apple Remote Desktop for deployment and management. The solution protects endpoints by freezing a snapshot of the IT administrator’s preferred configuration and settings. With a quick reboot, any unauthorized changes vanish from the system, restoring the Mac computer to its pristine Frozen state.

With Deep Freeze for Mac, you can:

• • Eliminate lockdown defense: Protect users who have unrestricted access, avoiding cumbersome computer lockdowns.
  • Prevent configuration drifts: Avoid Macs‌ straying from their baseline configurations while enabling users to save all their important work.

• Protect against phishing scams: Reverse malicious changes on reboot, protecting computers from phishing attacks.

• Achieve license compliance: Make compliance easier with Deep Freeze, removing unauthorized software while permitting approved software to remain. 

Deep Freeze on Windows

Deep Freeze for Windows offers all the same vital features as our Mac version does. It also makes installing updates easier than ever. Deep Freeze enables users to automatically download Windows updates even when computers are frozen. Schedule a maintenance period to perform automatic updates and return to a Frozen state. Maintenance is especially easy, as it’s possible to schedule various maintenance windows to perform automatic updates using a batch file or third-party management solutions.

Deep Freeze Server

With Deep Freeze Server, you can protect your Windows or Mac server operating systems and ensure they’re running at 100% operating availability. At Faronics, we don’t discriminate; whatever devices or operating systems you prefer, we make a Deep Freeze that’s ideal for your purposes. We also make special versions of Deep Freeze for large enterprises and one for smaller organizations, too.

How Can Deep Freeze Protect Your Workstations?

Intrigued to learn more? Please reach out to our experts today to discover how Deep Freeze can help your specific devices and configuration.