advice on backup

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gumdigger

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Topic # 26805 3-Oct-2008 22:04

hi.
just doing a little research before i do anything. found this old post. thought i should add to this and get your opinion on this aspect.

So the advice i want is for a small accounting firm which runs solution six program to manage their work. now the problem is that it gets hit by small spyware, viruses and etc sometimes. sometimes its so bad the windows is unoperatable. this tends to happen even if you have AV and Firewall programs are installed which are constantly updated.
i want the computer to be able backup the data on other HDD that i have installed and get the computer running back to normal.
So far i have thought of Acronis which can perform incremental backups at specified time (im not sure if this can be done) and if a something goes wrong such as virus or spyware i can restore the whole partition from the last backup (which is not infected).
will this work?
i need your advices.

somethings sound very stupid like spyware viruses problems even if you have antivirus and firewalls installed, but honestly guys computer illitrates can make this happen.

thanks

nate

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Reply # 168937 4-Oct-2008 03:15

You've described two separate issues here: the vulnerability of the accounting firm to viruses and spyware, plus you want to do backups for them as well.

Firstly, the easy one. You can either source a 3rd party program or use the backup program built into Windows. I'd grab a couple of external USB hard-drives, decide on a backup timetable, and set it up on their server. Make sure there is always a copy of their most recent backup off-site, so should the office be burgled, burn down etc, your client hasn't lost everything.

Regarding the anti-virus and spyware issues, here's what I'd recommend:

Install all the required programs the accountants need, then lock the machines down i.e. set them up with a user account that only had Read access to the hard-drive, doesn't have permission to install anything, and can only write files to My Documents. This will solve 99% of your problems, as since a user can't install anything, should they accidentally click on a virus, it won't be able to install either.
Get a decent router that will only allow web traffic and emails. Accountants shouldn't need anything more than this.
Finally, stop the threats at the door - sign up to a service such as Death2Spam or SMX which filter out all of the nasties before they reach your client. You may also want to get your client to ban laptops being connected to the network, and flash drives being plugged in (these can also carry viruses).

Hope this helps.

muppet

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Reply # 168939 4-Oct-2008 04:53

I'm not sure if this software from Microsoft might help you. It's called Steady State and allows you to keep a PC in a predefined state. A reboot will roll it back to how it was.

I haven't played with it, so I'm not sure how it would go if a user is saving personal files to the PC.

But you could install it, and go back now and then and upgrade the machines (with latest SPs etc) then reset the Steady State point.

It's just an idea, I haven't done it and I'm not sure how flexible it is. But it's free, so it can't hurt to investigate. If I was an Internet Cafe owner, I'd be using it!

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gumdigger

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Reply # 168942 4-Oct-2008 07:21

thanks guys,