Public access to PCs has caused great frustration amongst ICT Managers all around the world. Attempts to interfere with equipment, illegal software installations, accidental or deliberate file deletion and system setting changes, or virus attacks can be reasons for one common symptom, a crashed or unstable PC system displaying some of the following error messages:

There are plenty of methods to try to avoid or stop some of the causes for PC downtime and each have their distinct disadvantages:

A "System Restore Point" requires the attention of the system administrator and is not viable to be run daily. This results in unwanted changes to accumulate over a longer period, increasing the likely hood of malfunctions and the computer to "die" slowly.

Window's built-in "Rights Policies" can be restrictive, costly and time consuming to set up plus the complexity of the policies make care and maintenance tasks uneconomical.

"Ghosting or System Recovery" tools are designed for restoring a system either to the state intended by the manufacturer or to a static hard-disk image stored remotely. Administrative input is required, and restored images usually do not reflect desired system changes.

Hardware "Card & Dongle" solutions provide consistent protection, but are normally quite expensive. Each unit must be installed individually and can only protect one single PC, hence installations become laborious when planning a network-wide rollout.

HDGUARD has been developed with the need for unconditional and dynamic functionality in mind to ensure a healthy PC on every reboot, every time.