After you turn on Windows Disk Protection, turning it off will delete the cache file, which is time consuming to create. When it is time to install patches, upgrades, or new programs, select the Retain all changes permanently option to prevent your modifications from being lost. Any action you perform while this option is selected will not be removed by Windows Disk Protection. Because the cache file still exists when this option is selected, you can easily return to one of the other two options without repeating the time-consuming process of turning on Windows Disk Protection.

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If you have a user who wants to be able to retain changes between restarts, you can exempt the user from Windows Disk Protection by creating the user’s profile on a partition other than the operating system partition. For example, if Windows XP or Windows Vista is installed on the C drive, you can configure the user profile to reside on the D drive. All of the user restrictions you want to enforce from Windows SteadyState can still be applied, but this user’s data will not be subject to removal by Windows Disk Protection. If you opt to create a user profile on an alternate drive, you must remember not to lock the profile. A locked profile will remove any profile modifications no matter where it resides. For more information on locking a user profile, see "Lock Profile" in General.

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