Leveraging Microsoft's BgInfo to display Deep Freeze client information

Overview

This document will detail guidelines for configuring Microsoft's BgInfo to display Deep Freeze client information.



Introduction

Deep Freeze provides administrators with a solution to protect endpoints from changes by removing all changes on protected areas on a system restart.

By design, Deep Freeze does not make any distinction between changes that are malicious, or changes that are desired on a workstation; This may pose some challenges in managing dynamic resources which you may want to retain after a system restart.

With new customers of Deep Freeze, we sometimes see system administrators applying changes which they'd like to apply on a target workstation which is in a Frozen state, only to have these changes removed after a workstation restart.

Although Deep Freeze's status can be viewed (by default) by reviewing the local system notification area (near the Window clock), there are some limitations which Windows may introduce: Small, 16 by 16 pixel, icons or icons not being displayed in the system notification area.

In this document, we're going to walkthrough leveraging a third party utility to announce the status of a Deep Freeze workstation.

Overview

Details about Deep Freeze can be polled using several resources. Here are some examples on a 64-bit deployment with modern Deep Freeze deployments.

Deep Freeze's (Frozen | Thawed | Seeded) status?
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Faronics\Deep Freeze 6\DF Status"

Deep Freeze's version information (in the form of 0.00.000.0000)?
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Faronics\Deep Freeze 6\DF Version"

Configuring BgInfo

BgInfo can be configured to display workstation information as a part of customized wallpaper.

BgInfo also includes details to add custom fields, to analyze resources available on local workstations to display custom information.

Using details listed above in the overview, BgInfo can display information on Deep Freeze and other Faronics resources.