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Configuring a Windows PC For a Senior Citizen?
An anonymous reader writes "I would like to know if there are any resources on the Web or elsewhere describing how to configure a Windows PC for an older parent not living in the same household. Assume little computer familiarity or aptitude. Some stuff is obvious, like using only a few large icons for favorite Web sites, or an icon perhaps for composing email and another for checking email. Other considerations are eliminating nuisance messages from Windows update and antivirus/firewall. What works and what doesn't? Can anyone who has worked/volunteered at a senior center offer some insights?"
Exactly. Why the fuck would you install winders?
Make it easy for yourself d00d.
I installed Windows for my father. He comitted suicide about a year ago. My mom is using Ubuntu and she's still fine.
Yep, that is the only way. Stick with windows and clean it every time you visit them.
My daddy is a former Marine and a war vet, so I even suggested install Ubuntu on his old PC, but he was pretty clear:"Boy, what f*ck is happening with you? I don't wanna anything with a fag name in my house! Just do your job and install the same thing it had before! Worked before, will work now, stick with what is working! This is what made America great! Besides fag things were banished on this state last election, so people here hate any fag thing!"
So, until they get a free OS with a proper macho name, and not something that remind people of starbucks gayish sh*t or butterflies or other gayish stuff, we just have to stick with old Imperialist application, the one that gave the US dominance over all the computers in the world: MS Windows.
Well aren't you a dickhead?
Look at the website you're at. Don't be surprised everyone here hates microsoft and has a penguin make love to them in their nighties every evening.
That being said, Windows works. So does Linux. I would NEVER install Linux again on my grandparent(s) computers. It was an excersize in running up my cell phone bill, staying away from my family trying to fix their "problems" that the windows friends told them they had, etc., etc., etc.
My grandparents aren't the most computer literate people in the world, but geez, seeing as how Grandma goes back to the days of operating computers for Howard Hughes, grandpa goes back to the initial guidance systems and was an installer for the cameras on the SR-71, they ain't completely stupid, either.
Bottom line. If you bash one os over an other one, you have tainted glasses on. Because each OS has it's place. If Linux was the end all people on /. believed it to be, it would be installed on every desktop and server in the world. Period. Free isn't easy to pass up.
WinTel gives you things Mac and Linux don't. Cue the OS bashers screaming Virii, malware, etc. Yeah, also cue the fact that Windows is the fucking computing standard and has been for longer than most people that bitch about it have been alive. Period. Also cue the fact that most computers have WinTel on them, most users are familiar with WinTel, and you get the picture.
Yes, linux has a place. So does Windows. So does (and it pains to say this) Macintosh. So does PDP systems, for that matter. It's all in what you want to do.
Windows for old farts works just fine. Just because a few idiots couldn't get it to work they way they wanted it to, or tried to install Vista on their 386 (which runs slackware with no window manager JUST FINE) doesn't mean it's an inferior product. If it was, the majority of the desktops in corporate America (world) wouldn't get a fucking thing done, cuz they run Windows, and you KNOW you can't get anything done on anything but Linux.
--Toll_Free
Stop dancing around it, seniors are doing well if they remember to close their mouths while they eat.