Tuesday, May 27, 2008

How To Uninstall Deep Freeze From A Computer

Deep Freeze uninstall is one easy but tricky thing to do and even sometime requires long procedure. Many people who install it in their computers find it difficult to uninstall at times. The simple truth is that the file is never among the files in the Add/Remove of your control panel. So trying to do it from the Programs Uninstall in your control panel is not going to be possible, even when you are able to locate the file in you computer at C:\Program Files\HyperTechnologies\Deep Freeze.



Image of DeepFreeze Icon


There are three ways to go about uninstalling Deep Freeze from a system and they are follow:

(a) If you have difficulty with basic uninstall follow the steps below:


Step 1: First of all depress CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+F6 (if you cannot locate your deep freeze on your system tray). Depress SHIFT and double click on the icon on your system (if you can locate the deep freeze icon on the system tray).



Image of DeepFreeze password dailogue


Step 2: Enter the password you provided at the time of installation, click Thaw, click apply and reboot your system.

Step 3: After reboot, get the Cd that you used in installing the deep freeze in your computer. If you can't get the CD handy, locate the executable file at C:\Program Files\HyperTechnologies\Deep Freeze . You can also Google on the version of deep freeze installed in your system to re-install it. If you are told there is current product installed on your system ignore it  to continue and repeat the steps aforementioned above.

Step 4: Load the CD (if only you have it or burn your version downloaded online to a CD) or located executable file upon double clicking on it and the installation wizard will come up. Tick uninstall and click OK. The computer will ask you to restart your system for changes to take place. Click restart to complete the process.




(b) If you are using the Deep Freeze standard Evaluation version you can do this to uninstall it

Step 1: Go to you BIOS setup and put the date to 60 days ahead of  time. * If your system BIOS is password protect - you can get password ready for this to be possible.  

Step 2: Save and Exit your BIOS setup and your deep freeze will instantly be Thawed.

Step 3: Click Start --> Search -->type DF5Serv on the search-bar or whatever version you are using and click OK  ( when you could not locate the file in your hard disk). Double click on the executable file DF5Serv  and follow the uninstall wizard instruction to uninstall it . If you can locate the executable file simply double-click on it and follow the wizard instruction to uninstall it.




(c) The Deep Freeze does require thawing before you can go about your uninstall. If you forgot the password and you are using the full version, it is advisable to follow this step carefully.

This one is a whole hell of challenge to attempt by going to your Registry Editor to do the necessary deleting of files. Please, be very careful not to do anything stupid here because this part controls how your system and applications are carried out.

Before anything go to your BIOS and date it to 6 years into the future.

Step 1:  Go to START -- >Run .

Step 2: Type regedit and click OK  to open the  Registry Editor. Please, do not do anything silly if you aren't familiar with the registry. In Window XP and other Windows versions the regedit is the same hierarchy, something like the following :



(a) [+] HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

(b) [+] HKEY_CURRENT_USER

(c) [+] HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

(d) [+] HKEY_USERS

(e) [+] HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG


Step 3: Simply click (c) [+] HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and click SYSTEM --> a sub-menus will appear. In the sub-menus click ControlSet001 -->Services---> DepFrzHi(Right-click on it and delete this file)-->DepFrzLo(Right-click on it and delete the file)-->DFServEx(This is the deep freeze executable file. Right-click on it and delete this file).

Step 4:At(c) [+] HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE-->SYSTEM-->ControlSet003-->Services-->DepFrzHi(Right-click on it and delete this file)-->DepfrzLo(Right-click on it and delete this file)-->DFServEx(This is the executable file. Right-click on it and delete this file).

Step 5: Do the same thing to (c) [+] HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE--SYSTEM-->CurrentControlSet--> Services-->DepFrzHi (Right-click on it and delete this file)-->DepfrzLo(Right-click on it and delete thif file). Next one is DepFrzHi(Right-click on it and delete this file) and --> DFServEx(This is the deep freeze executable file.Right-click on it and delete this file).

Step 6: After finishing with the processes above, click File at the top left corner of you Registry Editor and go to exit to close it. It`s generally right to restart your computer. When you restart your computer the Deep Freeze will be gone.

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Attention:  Don`t use the task manager to delete the file DFServEx.exe , DF5ServEx .exe or DF6Serve. exe (Usually file for Deep Freeze versions) because it can cause system slow down , delete it and your system will continuously to reboot at the window screen or cannot delete the file altogether.
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On the side note for those who are interested in knowing more about Deep freeze:

-------Even the very version 6 can be removed from your computer. All you need do is to understand how deep freeze uses the window operating system files mostly the dll extension files(direct-link library). If you want to see those files used by deep freeze simply go to your DOS or Dot prompt and use edit command: type edit DF6ServExe.exe  and press enter. The editor will display it in ASCII yet, the windows dll extension files will remain in their original forms. These are the files used by deep freeze to hold on strongly to your system, when it usually says access denied . There`s still a way to get it fix. After finishing with the deleting of files in the registry editor as prescribed above by me download a deep freeze unfreeze from Google and you can easily unfreeze the version 6 now and go about removing it from your system by using version 6 disk or locate the executable file and run it.Click on uninstall and the computer will immediately reboot for changes to take place ---------




* Note that CMOS reset would not change anything regarding password protection.