Is there a free trial?

Yes. The 30-day free trial gives you full access to all Pro features: unlimited game protection, auto-detect new installs, GPU Pinned, and everything planned for future platforms. After 30 days, your card is billed at the Pro rate unless you cancel. You can cancel at any time before the trial ends.

Is there a free version?

Yes. The free plan protects one game permanently. No trial period, no credit card required. Upgrade to a paid plan for unlimited game protection, auto-detection of new installs, GPU Pinned (NVIDIA settings save and restore), and all future platform support.

Which platforms does GamePinned support?

Steam, Epic Games Store, and Riot Games. Newly installed games are detected and protected automatically across all three platforms. GOG, Battle.net, EA App, and Ubisoft Connect are planned for future releases.

Can users still play games and download updates?

Yes. GamePinned only prevents deletion. Launching, updating, and patching all work exactly as before. Users will not notice anything has changed unless they attempt to remove a protected game.

What happens when someone tries to uninstall a protected game?

The game stays installed. On Steam, the game reappears in the library within seconds. On Epic Games, the uninstall reports a failure and the game remains. On Riot Games, the files stay on disk. Opening the launcher and clicking Install re-registers the game instantly with no re-download.

Can users stop or disable GamePinned?

No. Standard users cannot stop the service, change its configuration, or access the management panel. Windows service permissions are hardened so that only administrators can stop or modify it. An admin password is required for any changes.

How does GamePinned prevent game uninstallation?

GamePinned locks game files using Windows file system permissions built into the OS. When a blocked account tries to uninstall a game, Windows denies the deletion. The launcher receives a permission error and the uninstall cannot complete. No third-party drivers or kernel hooks are used.

How do I block game uninstalls on Steam, Epic Games, and Riot Games?

GamePinned blocks game uninstalls by locking game folders at the Windows file system level. Install GamePinned, select the games you want to protect, and click Lock. Users can still play and update those games. Only uninstallation is prevented. It works on Steam, Epic Games Store, and Riot Games (Valorant, League of Legends, and more).

Does it work in gaming cafes, PC bangs, and internet centers?

Yes. GamePinned is built for shared-PC environments: gaming cafes, PC bangs, warnets, comshops, cyber cafes, esports arenas, and any Windows setup where multiple users access the same machine. It blocks all standard Windows accounts by default, covering every customer account.

How do I uninstall a game as an admin?

Enable Maintenance Mode from the GamePinned dashboard. Protection pauses immediately, allowing you to uninstall or swap games freely through Steam, Epic Games, or Riot Games. Disable Maintenance Mode when done. Protection resumes.

Can I use GamePinned at home to stop family members from deleting games?

Yes. GamePinned works for personal use too. Protect your game library from siblings, kids, roommates, or anyone else who uses your PC. The free plan protects one game permanently at no cost.

Home/Blog/GPU management

GPU Pinned: Keep NVIDIA Settings Consistent in a Gaming Cafe

April 2026·6 min read

NVIDIA Control Panel has no built-in option for gaming cafes. There is no admin lock, no kiosk mode, no profile that restores on reboot. A customer can sit down, open the tray icon, and change digital vibrance, refresh rate, power management mode, or per-game 3D settings. Those changes persist to the next customer without any warning.

This is the problem GPU Pinned solves. It is a feature built into GamePinned that saves a snapshot of your NVIDIA settings as a named profile and restores it automatically on every reboot.

What customers actually change

The most common changes in a gaming cafe context are not random. Competitive players in particular have strong preferences:

Digital vibrance. CS2 and Valorant players routinely crank this up. High vibrance makes enemies easier to spot. The next customer gets an oversaturated screen and may not know why.
V-Sync. Enabling V-Sync caps the frame rate to the monitor refresh rate and adds input lag. For competitive players, this is a real handicap. The next customer inherits it without any indication it was changed.
Anti-aliasing (MSAA). Enabling MSAA through the NVIDIA Control Panel can cut frame rates significantly depending on the setting and GPU. A customer who enables it for one game applies the overhead to every game until it is turned off.
Power management mode. Some players set this to "Prefer Maximum Performance" to reduce latency. This raises power draw and heat on the GPU for every subsequent session.
Resolution and refresh rate. NVIDIA Control Panel lets users change these independently of Windows display settings. A customer who drops to 1080p on a 1440p display leaves it that way.
Per-application profiles. NVIDIA stores custom 3D settings per game under Program Settings. A customer can set anti-aliasing, texture filtering, or shader cache differently for a specific title. Those overrides stay and affect every subsequent user of that game.

All of these settings are stored in the NVIDIA DRS (Driver Settings) database on disk. They survive reboots. Standard Windows account restrictions do not block access to NVIDIA Control Panel. Group Policy can hide the Windows Display Control Panel, but customers can still reach NVIDIA Control Panel through the system tray icon on a standard account.

In 2017, a network administrator posted on the NVIDIA Developer Forums asking how to restrict NVIDIA Control Panel changes via Group Policy or registry for a shared-PC environment. The answer from NVIDIA: there is no native mechanism to lock settings. The only workaround discussed was hiding the Control Panel shell extension entirely. That removes access but does not restore a known-good configuration after each session.

Why existing solutions fall short

Hiding NVIDIA Control Panel

Group Policy and cafe management software like Antamedia can restrict access to parts of the Windows Control Panel. This prevents customers from using the standard interface. It does not reset the DRS database to a known state. If a customer managed to change settings before the restriction was in place, or if the restriction is applied incorrectly, the wrong settings persist.

It also removes a tool that legitimate customers may want to use, without solving the core problem.

Reboot-to-restore (Deep Freeze and similar)

Deep Freeze and Reboot Restore Rx revert the entire drive on reboot. Because the NVIDIA DRS files are stored in ProgramData on the system drive, they get reverted along with everything else. This does reset GPU settings.

The problem is that it resets everything. Every game update, every driver update, every Windows patch must be applied in thaw mode. On a cafe with 20 to 80 PCs, this is a recurring maintenance cycle. Horizon DataSys, the maker of Reboot Restore Rx, documents this directly: cafe operators using reboot-to-restore tools frequently spend time managing thaw cycles, manual updates, and re-imaging. The GPU reset is a side effect, not a targeted feature.

If your reason for using Deep Freeze is specifically GPU settings, you are accepting a large amount of overhead for a narrow problem.

NVIDIA iCafe Certified Program

NVIDIA runs an iCafe Certified Program in several markets, including the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It is a hardware partnership and co-marketing program. It provides no tools for locking settings, saving profiles, or resetting the DRS database between sessions.

What GPU Pinned does

GPU Pinned is a feature inside GamePinned. It targets the specific problem: GPU and display settings drifting between customer sessions.

The flow is straightforward. You configure your NVIDIA settings the way you want. Open the NVIDIA tab in GamePinned, click Save New Profile, and name the profile. Enable auto-restore on startup. From that point forward, GPU Pinned restores the saved profile on every reboot before any user logs in.

Customers can still change NVIDIA settings freely during their session. Those changes are their problem for the duration of their visit. On the next reboot, GPU Pinned resets everything back.

What a profile captures

The full NVIDIA 3D settings database, including global settings and all per-application profiles
Display configuration for every connected monitor: resolution, refresh rate, color depth, orientation, and position

Both the NVIDIA App and the classic NVIDIA Control Panel write to the same underlying files. GPU Pinned captures both.

Multiple profiles

You can save up to 5 named profiles per PC. This is useful if you run different configurations for different game events or tournaments. Each profile card has its own Restore, Set Auto, Rename, and Delete buttons. You can switch the active profile at any time, and the change takes effect on the next reboot.

Manual restore

Any profile can also be restored immediately without rebooting. If a customer leaves settings in a bad state mid-session and you need to reset quickly, click Restore on the profile card. Changes take effect right away.

How GPU Pinned compares to the alternatives

Approach	Resets GPU settings	Game updates work normally	Multiple saved profiles	Manual restore without reboot
Deep Freeze / reboot-to-restore	Yes	No (requires thaw cycles)	No	No
Group Policy / hide Control Panel	No	Yes	No	No
Cafe management software (Antamedia, SENET)	No	Yes	No	No
GPU Pinned	Yes	Yes	Yes (up to 5)	Yes

Requirements

GPU Pinned requires an NVIDIA GPU. AMD and Intel integrated graphics are not supported. Any recent NVIDIA driver works. No specific version is required.

GPU Pinned is a paid feature, available on Elite and Pro plans. The NVIDIA tab is visible on all plans so you can check GPU status, but saving and restoring profiles requires a paid license.

Get started

GPU Pinned is built into GamePinned. If you are already running GamePinned v2.0.0 or later, the NVIDIA tab is already in your sidebar. Configure your GPU settings, save a profile, and enable auto-restore.

If you are not running GamePinned yet, the free plan is available with no credit card required. It protects one game permanently. GPU Pinned and unlimited game protection are on the paid plans.

Read the GPU Pinned docs Download GamePinned

How to prevent Steam game uninstalls in a gaming cafe How to prevent Epic Games uninstalls in a gaming cafe Deep Freeze vs GamePinned: which is right for your cafe?