User guide

The main screen shows a grid of all enrolled devices with their protection state, health and last contact. Each client reports its status about every 30 seconds, and a device is shown as Offline after roughly 95 seconds without contact.

• Commands can target a single device, a group or all devices.
• Group and all-device operations are sent as one signed command per device, so you see each device's result separately.
• The Master also shows license status and the number of devices in use.

Health is separate from protection state: Healthy, Warning (for example, the overlay is filling up) or Critical, which needs attention.

Select a device, a group or all devices, then choose Protect or Unprotect. The device switches to 'Reboot required', and the new mode takes effect only after a restart.

• Protected: everything that changes on a protected volume is discarded at reboot.
• Maintenance: changes persist like on a normal PC.
• You can send a Restart command from the Master right after changing the mode.

Maintenance mode lets changes persist temporarily so you can install updates or software. There are several ways to return to protection:

A scheduled window defines a maintenance period that starts and ends automatically, for example overnight after closing time.

• Set a start and end time; a window can last at most 7 days.
• Optionally restart devices automatically at the start and at the end of the window.
• Before any automatic restart, an on-screen warning appears on the PC. The default is 300 seconds and it can be set from 0 to 3600 seconds.

You can exclude specific folders or specific registry keys from protection so their changes persist after a reboot. A common example is a game save folder.

The following cannot be excluded:

• Whole drives, or C:\ as a whole.
• C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32.
• Program Files or Program Files (x86).
• C:\Users or C:\ProgramData as a whole.
• Paths with wildcards, relative paths, or network (UNC) paths.

You can choose whether to protect each volume separately. The most common layouts in gaming centers are:

• The system drive C: is always protected.
• A separate games drive (for example D:) left unprotected, so games can be updated without putting the system into maintenance, but that drive is not restored automatically.
• Or the games drive is protected too, and game updates are done in Maintenance mode or a scheduled window. This is safer but requires planning updates.

With the UWF engine, changes during a session are stored in a temporary overlay in RAM or on disk. The overlay has a maximum size and a warning threshold (by default at 80% full).

• When the warning threshold is crossed, the device health shows Warning in the Master.
• If the overlay fills completely, Windows may become unstable; a reboot clears it.
• Set an adequate overlay size for the available memory and disk space, and schedule regular restarts for PCs that run for long hours.

Any update installed on a protected PC is discarded at reboot. So:

1. 1Put the device or group into Maintenance mode, or use a scheduled maintenance window.
2. 2Restart so Maintenance mode takes effect.
3. 3Install Windows updates, game and launcher updates, and restart if the updates require it.
4. 4Re-enable protection and restart to lock in the new clean state.

RebootGuard checks for signed updates on two channels: Stable and Beta. Use the Stable channel in production.

If you download an update manually from the website, verify its SHA-256 hash and digital signature as described in the installation guide.

The device must be in Maintenance mode before the client is removed. Otherwise the reboot would roll back the uninstall itself and the software would be back as before.

1. 1From the Master, put the device into Maintenance mode and restart it.
2. 2Uninstall from the Master or with an administrator account on the PC.
3. 3On Windows Pro PCs using the VHDX engine, follow the wizard steps to restore the boot layout.
4. 4Remove the device from the Master list to free its license seat.