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Ask Slashdot: How Best To Set Up a Parent's PC?
CodingHero writes "My mother uses a recent enough PC running Windows XP and has a broadband connection, but her primary method of interacting with the online world remains the AOL software. She also likes to download and use various seasonal wallpapers, screensavers, etc. Usually all this works fine and I don't get family tech support calls, but occasionally something big goes wrong. Since she lives 400 miles away, that means I get to provide phone tech support. While I can usually get something fixed through simple instructions, sometimes it's just too complicated to properly diagnose and explain over the phone (e.g., a trojan infection that anti-virus won't get rid of on its own). I'd like to set up the system so that her account is not an Administrator and that I can easily (and securely) remotely connect to fix problems, install stuff she really wants to use (after proper vetting of course), and so on. Moving to Linux or a Mac is not an option. Upgrading the system to Windows 7 and breaking the AOL habit, while seemingly the best course of action, is going to mean a lot of my time up front to explain how to do things all over again, time that I don't have a lot of right now. Has anyone else had a similar experience? If so, what did you find was the best way to re-educate a parent and/or set up a method to securely and remotely manage a system, or at least lock it down to better protect it?"
Get her one.
Walking a parent through steps over the phone can be a frustrating experience. Even after moving my father to a Mac I still found myself having to deal with his issues for the first couple of months on a near-daily basis. Using TeamViewer helped this immeasurably. Free for personal use.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
"Recent enough PC running Windows XP."
"My mother uses a recent enough PC running Windows XP and .. Moving to Linux or a Mac is not an option"
Why are you asking here and not on a Windows forum?
AccountKiller
Agreed. Deny all knowledge of computers.
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
I use it to for family "IT" support too. Works great. Logmein is another good option.
Walk away. Just walk away.
I've done this. Set your parent up in XP with a non-admin account. Ensure you can have her sign in as admin when necessary. Worst case, she signs in as admin and there's a big icon on the desktop (make the background color red or something to make ti really obvious) for running joinme session, and nothing else. On her default desktop, all the usual icons (as well as joinme). I also set up FIrefox w/ adblock, and the PC has been virtually problem free. Only had to walk through setting up a new printer.
If you're willing to move her to Win7 and away from AOL software, why not just move her to Linux? The best thing I did for my parent's computer (they are 6000 miles away) is to replace their WinXP computer with one that runs Linux that's configured to open a web browser immediately upon startup - no login required.
The computer also ssh'es to my public server and opens a tunnel back to their computer so I can connect via VNC if needed.
When they got a new camera, I was able to remotely set up a script so If they plug in a memory card from their camera, it copies the images from the card automatically and uploads to an online photo album.
This covers 100% of what they use a computer for, and completely eliminated their recurring virus infections.
All right, typo, TEAMVIEWER
1. Install logmein (logmein.com) - the free edition is just fine.
2. Make your mom a standard user. Non-administrator.
3. Create an "Admin" account. Do NOT tell her the password.
It's working so far for my mother-in-law. Her old computer was so badly infested that I just gave up and gave her one of my spares. (She had no reload media.)
Now, even with her teen grandson surfing porn (yes, I caught him at it, yes, we had a long talk about it but I doubt he's stopped) it seems to be clean.
She has Windows 7. Maybe it won't work as well with XP.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
If the machine gets infected, then have her restore from the clonezilla partition and she is back to where she was. For added fun, you could teach her how to make subsequent backups.
I had a similar situation with my mother. I bought her a generic HP laptop from Walmart with Win7 for ~$400. Installed LogMeIn and I can access whenever I want to maintain.
Copilot is free on weekends.
https://www.copilot.com/
I know you said it's not an option.
But I converted my brother and a friend to Ubuntu. Both extremely reluctant to move. So I saved their old Windows hard drive, told them they'd never have to worry about a virus again, and that I would help them figure out anything they didn't understand. It's been a resounding success. Support calls have dropped from several per month to one every six months.
"downloading seasonal wallpapers and screensavers"
I can't think of a quicker way to get my Windows system infected. Seriously, if you're going to break the AOL habit, move her to an iPad or Linux. You won't regret it. Actually, you owe it to her and yourself.
Break the bad habits that are holding her back such as AOL. Next time you see her educate her. Show her the internet works without aol (I suggest chrome since it has flash and auto updates). This way you can move on from win XP. Where you go from there is up to you. IF she is just doing email, it sounds like a perfect solution fro a Chrome book. Logmein Free works pretty good for remote support. You can get in whenevery you need to run updates.
You can set it up to run as a service and it is free for personal use.
Don't.
Have her buy something from Best Buy or wherever, and direct her to ask them for support.
Seriously, why do you want to be her 24/7 tech support? DON'T DO IT!
I was going to suggest the same, but then I thought 'he might actually like his mother'.
"For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert"
I face the same problem with my parents computer until the day i installed Team Viewer on my parent's computer. It makes things a lot easier now since I just have to tell them to turn on the computer (the application runs on startup) and then I take care of it from there.
Team Viewer works well for me.
Shame Linux isn't a option. Not only can my father not deal with an English only user interface, he has no sense of online security at all. So I installed Ubuntu with Chinese on a second hand P4 for his email and web-browsing habit. There is very little maintenance on my part because he doesn't do much of anything else. Occasionally I will go in and delete the unexecutable crap that gets downloaded unintentionally, but that's it. That was more than 3 years ago. Haven't had a serious problem yet. Haven't looked back since.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
I'll glady be my parents' tech support for as long as they live. Why? Because they were my complete life support for about the first 16 years of my life, setting me up with the opportunities to learn skills I need to make triple my parents' income doing "tech support" for nameless faceless companies like Best Buy. No way in hell am I going to tolerate my own mother to drudge her way through tech support at places like that.
Ultra VNC can be run as reverse vnc and will even build a little self-contained executable that is preconfigured. Install the remote on her end and all she will need to do is doubleclick. You can point it at a ddns resolver if you don't have a static IP. There is also the old school remote assistant built into windows which works ok. That said, I would suggest moving her from xp to windows 7. It is much more secure and you can change most things to "classic" mode to make them look XP like to make learning easier. You can also install a router capable of running clamav or some sort of scanning to check those incoming wallpaper executables etc. for trojans and that might make life a little easier. Oh, and if hardware upgrades are ever on the map, consider a mirrored raid. Harddrives for home use are cheap and most motherboards support raid1 nowadays, so considering how few people actually make backups this might be a lifesaver for her and one less headache for you too. It won't protect from everything a good backup will, but it will save her from a sudden disk failure and the built in backup on windows 7 is sufficient for many home users.
Get a web developer
Setup her system with windows xp with steadystate. When she wants to make changes once a month come in as admin and make the changes to the system. But remember it is dangerous to have your parents on the internet. Do your best to Keep your parents off the internet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9R-2X9Bl5w
you want her to be able to install without occasional trickery and not have admin? and you think malware cares about her not running as admin?
setup remote access, do it with that(not so nice when you have to reboot a lot though). use logmein or whatever.
if you don't want to setup that then get her on skype, dead simple screen sharing, let's you at least see what you're trying to explain to her to do.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
logmein.com has a free version that I use to help about a dozen friends and family. Works great almost all the time.
My parents live in India and we skype a lot. I manager their computer remotely using logmein free.
When they got new laptop, first thing I asked them is to install logmein. That was the only time I had to do phone support, to make them install logme in. I performed a new install here simultaneously so that I can walk them through easily, rather than asking them to explain the screen.
Once install was done, I cleaned up crapware, installed anti virus software and easy peasy from that time. whenever they say something popped up on screen, I logmein to their machine.
After trying several different hand-me-downs over the years including a 486, original iMacs (Lemon-lime), and a recent desktop Apple, I've concluded that the next machine will be the iPad with the largest display that I can find.
Consuming content - check
App in the same place as it was before - check
buttons and menus not moved around even inadvertently - check
I set up my mother with Ubuntu, and she loves it. She appreciates the "tidiness" of the desktop, and the simplicity of it all.
... and I popped on and fixed it. And then reminded her about the dragons.
I left her set up with the ability to sudo, but with the warning that "there be dragons", and to contact me.
I set up OpenVPN so I could always SSH on, and fix anything.
The only time I've ever had a problem was when my sister's Windows-using ex boyfriend tried to install something, and stuffed up the firewall rules. I simply talked her through sudo iptables
Years of trouble-free computing.
Get your own free personal location tracker
"Moving to Linux or a Mac is not an option" .. ..
"Why are you asking here"
"Because a true nerd is platform-agnostic."
Then the original question stands, doesn't it? Platform agnostic does not mean "single platform only" any more than it means "you have to like everything".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Buy them something that comes with phone support. Seriously.
Sure, the support contract may be somewhat expensive, but it's a lot easier when you don't have to worry about support yourself.
Buy them an iMac and get them AppleCare support for 3 years for 169 USD
Buy them a Dell Inspiron One and get 3 Year Enhanced Support for 149 (I can't find a direct link to a description)
Buy them an HP Envy and get an HP 3 year Care Pack149 USD
Or some other company - it doesn't matter. What matters is that they can bother someone other than you about these things.
It boils down to something like 50 dollars a year for ease of mind - both for you and them. Sure, it's easy to call you, but they also worry that they're disturbing you. Much easier to pay someone else to do it.
It sounds callous and harsh, but honestly, having worked in phone support for two of the companies, I can tell you, that once you explain to these people that instead of having to worry about bothering their friends or family, they can simply call us and not have to worry about bothering anybody, you can almost always hear a a load being removed from their shoulders.
Yes, we like being able to draw on help from friends and family, but we also don't want to come off as needy and helpless.
Walk away. Just walk away.
You're probably kidding, but the guy's gonna have a hard time doing that with his mom who already knows his tech background without starting a small family war.
you just made me hungry for chinese food
A) Users aren't administrators. Don't give them administrative access.
2) No Internet Explorer. Ever. At all. For any reason.
If you want to go above and beyond install Microsoft Security Essentials, Chrome, and some remote management tool like LogMeIn so you can see what they see. You will also need to have an administrator account (I prefer to have my OWN account with administrative access, rather than use the "administrator" account).
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
have her install a VNC server or the RDP client on her computer
then configure her firewall to forward the ports to her computer
then every time she calls have her look up her public IP on her wifi router so you can VNC into her computer
or you can just have her install logmein or teamviewer to make it easy. unlike what most of the slashtarts will tell you
or tell her to buy an ipad which is even better
"Moving to Linux or a Mac is not an option."
Okay, fair enough: Migrate her to the platform(s) you are most comfortable supporting and/or use at home. "But, but..." Give your mother some credit - she will adapt.
After a couple of years of getting 5-10 calls per week from my parents about random errors and pop-up ads on their eMachines PC running Windows XP, I was forced to give them a politely worded ultimatum: If they wanted me to continue supporting their PC, they needed to run what I was comfortable supporting over the phone. They now have a Linux desktop and a Windows 7 laptop, both loaded with Firefox and Openoffice. The laptop only has problems if they shut it down in the middle of a software update, and the desktop only when something outside of the system is causing the issue (e.g. their router needs to be reset). Any issues related to the desktop are handled by phone in 5-10 minutes by walking through the steps on my personal Linux systems, which use the same distribution and the same window manager.
If your mother is anything like mine, she too will appreciate not having to call you 1-2 times per day due to weird Windows problems and malware. Make it easier on both of you and consider my advice.
- Install Teamviewer so you can fix stuff remotely
- Install Chrome
- Drag and drop her AOL favorites from the browser directly into Chrome's bookmark manager
- Remove AOL from the system with extreme prejudice
- Go have a Mai Tai, you've earned it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Super easy to use for both sides. Easy enough that you can pawn off some of the IT help to other members of the family.
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
Chrome OS just screams out for usecases like this.
Just consider, for a moment, that accepting one's parent's foibles is a kindness. Karma-producing, even. Just like not getting upset about baby drool.
Then remember that the reason this is such an effective infection vector is because there are SO MANY PEOPLE like this. There are entire industries creating wreaths, and window stickers, and seasonal decorations.
Now go back and attempt to consider the original question with more compassion for the ignorant user, and less snark for the helper. You can count it as your good deed for the day.
I moved my mid 70s parents to chrome for a browser and successfully use chrome remote to help them out.
True, WE know that... but parents (60+) who aren't that tech savvy tend to be resistant to big change. Even if that change is just a big OS name... it's still scary to some.
They're comfortable with Windows version X, it's less scary for them to go to Windows version Y instead of OSX or Linux or whatever.
My dad never learned how to use a computer, even for just email. And until recently, he was a "General Motors" only-guy. Seriously, 30+ years and only owned GM cars. So, imagine the "fun" there if I tried to get him to switch from Windows to OSX.
My mom is more tech savvy, though still pretty bad, but she appears to like her iPad fairly well. But when I suggest an iMac or something she says "No, I'm used to Windows" Personally, I'd rather she go with the iMac... it's less of a hastle to support and do certain things for someone not very tech savvy.
Remote Desktop is built into XP and later. It's free, secure, and has been around for more than a decade. Why not just use that?
I don't respond to AC's.
Yeah, I jokingly suggested getting something in trade for my tech support and Mom helpfully reminded me of who funded my college ;-)
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
1. Install Linux
2. setup ssh
3. Install VMWare/Virtualbox
4. Install XP in vm
5. lock down XP vm as best you can
6. Setup system to auto-run vm full-screen
7. Take daily backups of vm
8. rsync XP vm backup to your machine
9. Troubleshoot her problem locally if you wish
10. or screw it, ssh in as needed
11. restore old vm
First, she needs to get off of XP, and off AOL.
Second, you MUST buy and install "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware". All by itself, it will stop most of the bad stuff from installing. Do this at the very least. I'd take away her administrator privileges, too.
Win 7 with the 'Classic' theme is pretty close to the XP interface...that should give her the look and feel she's comfortable with.
:)
As others have said, remote control software is your friend. TeamViewer is what I use and is rock solid, apparently LogMeIn.com is good too
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I live about 1000 miles from my parents.
When they got a computer, I told them in no uncertain terms I couldn't be their tech support -- because I have no idea what happened on the machine, and I can't see the machine, and them saying "it is broken, make it go" won't help me figure out the problem.
I made it very clear to them that it isn't possible for me to tell them over the phone WTF is wrong with their computer and how to fix it.
So either set them up with something so locked down they can't do anything -- and risk them getting annoyed with you. Or tell them to go to Nerds on Site or one of those things. Or bring it into staples.
Trying to keep someone else's computer running from a long distance is a huge pain in the ass, and quite frustrating for all concerned.
Both my parents and I are happy with this arrangement -- me especially. ;-)
This has had the happy consequences that my father has had to things like identify that there is such a thing as a printer driver, that they're necessary to make printers work, and that they need to be installed. After years of being a technophobe, he's starting to have to understand a little more of the whys and wherefores.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And programmed an oversized remote, which I turned sideways. She thinks QVC is "Amazon".
The very few support calls I can solve with Teamviewer from work or home.
Windows isn't a system for the casual home-user. It only works reliably when an army of competent sysadmins pamper it daily. There's no point in giving a relative a Windows PC or laptop if you have to maintain it yourself.
I don't get paid enough at work to use Windows - I certainly don't want to play Windows sysadmin for free.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
SuRun is a program that brings UAC to Windows XP, but with a lot more granular control. I still run XP at home, and SuRun allows me to run as a limited user. It works quite well, and you can customize rules to always run specified programs with admin privs. It can also automatically prompt for credentials when required. The only main problems I've encountered as a regular user account is with Adobe's Flash Updater failing and when installing certain software--I had to log in as a true admin to install Acronis True Image. If I re-run the Flash updater with SuRun, it works fine. Windows Update works fine if set to automatically install critical/security updates; but if I manually want to install optional updates, then I have to log in with an admin account. SuRun site translated into English
Sucker - when I said the same thing to your mom, she offered to blow me.
Battlemaster--Game with friends in medival realms
What are your parents using on the PC? My Dad uses his computer for e-mail and mostly browser based activity. What else do they need if they are basic users?
After multiple infestations I told her to use the public library computer, she's retired and it is right around the block.
love is just extroverted narcissism
I don't have much new to add other than to chime in with several other people who suggested an iPad or Chromebook. My daughter now lives 1600 miles away and solving her computer problems remotely was becoming a pain. I got her a Chromebook for Christmas and haven't had to do "phone support" since. Tranquility restored for a mere $250.
Proverbs 21:19
I would be interested in how to manage a PC remotely including remote BIOS and booting remotely into a PBE or utility partition etc. Is there any reasonably priced hardware/device/software that works like HP iLO for servers? Even spiffier would be to boot off a remote USB flash drive or MinWin, etc. Just as OP said, removing viruses remotely when in-session AV fails to do the job is the #1 reason that forces me to do an in home visit. (FWIW, my mother runs as a standard user on her PC, and I use LogMeIn Free to manage it when necessary with my own login. Works reasonably well.)
I can assure you that it would be much less scary to go from Windows XP to Mountain Lion or Ubuntu than it would be to go to Windows 8.
You said Linux wasn't an option because she doesn't want to learn Linux. That's a confusion of concerns - the two aren't mutually exclusive.
1) setup linux. CentOS 6 probably because it will last forever.
1a) optionally setup VNC sharing of the root X.
2) setup VirtualBox.
3) virtualize her existing XP install and run it on VirtualBox.
4) snapshot it
5) Set it to auto-login, auto-start, auto-run the VM. Go with 'quiet' in grub if you want to.
Now, set her loose. If she gets hosed, ssh into the box (vpn, reverse tunnel, etc.) and revert to the snapshot. When you visit, or remotely if you've setup X forwarding or VNC, install the security updates and take a new snapshot.
This will provide her with a higher level of service than you're currently able to provide her (rapid restore to a good state) and it will make your life easier as well.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Get her a chromebook /chromebox set her homepage as aol.com set it to auto login to her acct. Make sure the launcher icon is the aol icon :) If you want to keep the same hardware just install a light linux distro with the same set-up
Amen to that. My mom used to have a Kubuntu PC I set up. It ran fine most of the time, but sometimes there were problems with Pulseaudio and Skype would not work properly. Getting my mom to install Team Viewer was not an option (she is almost completely computer illiterate, despite using a Linux machine for over 5 years now. Not the learning type), it was difficult enough to teach her to switch windows from the task bar.
For Christmas I gave her an Android tablet (Samsung GT2), and amazingly (after I configured it) I still haven't heard of any problems, even though it is a new machine, new environment, new paradigm and new control method. She even showed initiative at installing some apps to learn English.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Teamviewer is a good remote desktop app that you can use. Honestly there are several apps a google search would have produced in seconds. This is a very common problem with many common solutions.
I have the same problem with my mother-in-law. I set up about 10 cloned XP virtual machines in virtualbox running on top of Mint linux. When she breaks one she moves to the next one. Every few months when I visit I delete the old ones and make a bunch of new ones. Since she doesn't seem to know about bookmarks and only uses the computer for facebook and shopping it doesn't seem to bother her when it gets reset to the clean state.
XP end of life is May 2014. You may want to nip that OS in the bud now rather than later.
Remote desktop or VNC solutions work fine, why don't you do just that?
Just make sure the software is enabled and the router is properly set up to allow incoming connections on the right port.
Normally, even I put Windows on machines and hope for the best. But some recent experiences I have had with some Ubuntu loads (I'm a redhat guy... I would not likely use Ubuntu for myself) have really impressed me with how well new users can adapt to it.
I have a son, for example, who has not recently asked me for any help with hit Ubuntu netbook... not recently, not in the past year or more. Reliable as all get-out. Well I take that back... there was one thing where updates somehow resulted in the system not working. I figured it out in a few seconds and had him back on his way. But why is Ubuntu good for my son and for other users? It's all about purpose and approach.
Firstly, in his case, it is an internet device. For most people that's all computers are. And since the MSIE-only web is ALREADY a thing of the past, that old argument is already gone. And since all of his functions are seriously easy to find, there's no learning there either even if it's not behind a start button. And yes, I encountered resistance to it not being Windows. But then I just asked him questions which guided him to the realization that it's the INTERNET he wants, not Windows. It's the functions on the internet he wanted, not the OS. And it seriously didn't take him long to get past it.
It also didn't hurt that I had to clean his malware infested machine(s) numerous times over the years and he accepts his responsibility in all of that and would rather not have to deal with it in the future.
Is this for everyone? Hell no. There will be people who want to go the the store and buy a greeting card maker program and expect it to run. Can't do it with Linux. You can show them alternatives and stuff... heck, lots of web sites do that now. But they probably already bought the software before they asked you to help install it. So it's not for everyone and establishing eligibility and suitability is paramount.
And does my son use Windows? Yup!! It has his Ubuntu netbook but he also has a Windows 7 machine too... for games mostly. But that's the beauty. He now ONLY uses it for the games. Where do we get most of the malware? "The Web" "Email" Right? Well those things are under Ubuntu. I've never heard of anyong getting malware from the games themselves. (Not to say it doesn't happen, just that I never heard of it.) In any case under this usage configuration, he now has reference data on his Ubuntu and the action on his Windows. And NEITHER trouble me all that much at all!
I couldn't be happier.
Also, in the more distant past, I did something similar -- the purpose approach -- and set up Linux for my older step-father. He was running strong for a very long time on RedHat... before it became Fedora. It was good... though I seem to recall on one visit his desktop had a LOT of "setup.exe" "setup(1).exe" and the like. I smile when I saw them. Knew what they meant and was glad it didn't happen. That old machine has undoubtedly been replaced by other relatives and most likely Windows... and you know? That's THEIR problem now and I'm quite sure that step-dad was thinking "I never had that trouble with his [Linux geek step-son] set up..."
Linux is a tough fit because Windows is so pervasive. It's out there and it's very, very expected. But even online banking and the like work perfectly with Linux as the host OS while using a browser other than MSIE. It's still bad enough that you have to nearly make apologies for the state of the industry while you are explaining how things work. But the most important thing to me is that the things which work under Linux WORK. That's email, web, skype, chat, printing and all that. They work.
You're lucky she didn't start by detailing the trials and tribulations of her pregnancy with you. Even worse is the blow by blow description of your childhood to your significant other.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Your mother is using and is familiar enough with running Windows XP, so why not just give her a machine that looks like XP? Install Ubuntu, then install XPGnome (video at http://blog.hostonnet.com/xpgnome-make-ubuntu-look-like-windows-xp, download from http://linux.softpedia.com/progDownload/XpGnome-Download-52808.html). If you really want to stick with M$ Windoze or you / your mother have a desire to buy a new machine, install Classic Shell (http://www.classicshell.net/) and set the interface to look like XP.
Whatever platform she ends up on, create a start page for Firefox or whatever. Mimic some of the same links within the AOL start screen and to wherever else she generally goes to.
Makes things much easier.
There is additional problem of installing new software - she must boot the system thawed to install, and that can (if she's not used to Deep Freeze) lead to possible problems and infections. But I agree with Deep Freeze. TeamViewer + Deep Freeze is a great combination. If she does anything bad (change settings, gets infected), Deep Freeze will restore everything after restart. For installation and any bigger problem, TeamViewer to the rescue.
and put a virus scanner on it...
/Applications onto his desktop (not realizing he's just moved the App itself and not just created a short-cut). This is easy for them to fix and it's happened enough (still only a handful of times) that they don't even need my help to know what the problem is or how to fix it (just put it back in Applications).
My parents have had an iMac since 2007... I live 2000 miles away, so in-person support is limited to those fairly rare occasions that I'm in town (a handful of times throughout the year). They actually bought it without even a phone-call to me until they had already gotten it home and set it up. Most recently they ran into an issue with TurboTax not being compatible with OS X 10.5 and needed to upgrade to 10.6. This involved a trip to the Apple Store and $20 to get the 10.6 CD (since that was the last one to be physical media only). After doing all the software updates TurboTax was happy. They told me they wanted me to take a look (since I was back there this past weekend for other family stuff), and everything looked fine. It was up to 10.6.8 and according to the App Store they could skip Lion and go straight to Mountain Lion for another $20. Sure the computer cost them ~$2300 in 2007, but that's not too much more than they spent on their last couple computers, and this one has lasted twice as long. They hope to get another 1-2 years out of it before upgrading. Honestly, for what they do with it, it could probably go a bit longer.
The only real problem they have with it is that occasionally my Dad will drag an application out of
They've had this one computer for over 5 years. It still works as well as it did the day they bought it. The previous five year period they owned 3 different computers that all ran Windows and needed to be reinstalled pretty frequently (every 6 months or so, and this was when I was living within 100 miles, so it was less difficult to get back there to help out).
Yeah she told me. Have the shotgun wounds healed yet?
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
Hell they show the childhood movies of me the damned tub. I'm pretty much over being embarrassed by them...lol
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
I provide support for several family members and a few friends through the free version of Logmein. There's even an Android version which allows me to log in and do simple things from my phone.
I try to set rules up front. If you expect me to provide long distance support, you must practice some minimal amount of safe computing. Avoid clicking on popups, avoid online games, don't install certain apps, don't install stuff just because it's cute.
My mom's machine got so hammered I couldn't log in remotely. She shipped it to me and I found the thing took twenty minutes to boot and the tray was half the task bar. Spent a couple days identifying and uninstalling the Reader's Digest Daily Quote, the Daily Scripture, Weatherbug, a whole bunch of coupon apps and a bunch of other trash, plus a good antivirus scrubbing and a baseline run with Spybot. I sent it back to her and said if it ever gets in that condition again, she's on her own.
Mother-in-law practices safe computing, but she sometimes has a grandson living with her, and he fell for a fake antivirus trojan. That had to be dealt with in person (she's a couple hundred miles away) and took forever to scrub off. I told her that I'm still willing to be her support but she has to keep the grandkids away from the machine.
One thing I have been thinking of doing is run the family member's Windows instance virtually, and include a backup copy of the working instance on disk, which would allow easily recreating the instance if necessary. The complicated part is to figure out what media needs to be kept.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Personally, I thoroughly dislike Windows 8. Enough that I'm now a Mac user. But I'm seriously considering moving my mother over to it.
I would set up a start screen that shows just the most basic icons: mail, web browser, photo viewer, Word, and that's just about it. I could pin her favourite web sites to the start screen as well.
She really has no need to ever see a desktop. She never runs an application in any mode other than full screen - she has no idea how windows work despite my many, many attempts to teach her. And if you stick to the metro part of Windows 8, the risk of viruses are pretty low. (Although to my knowledge she's never had a virus.)
I'm actually thinking Windows 8 might be a good fit, for exactly the reasons that I hate it for my own use.
Good lord, in this day and age, she is still running XP?
While you are trying to save yourself time by not having to train her, you are making it worse on yourself, because you are going to have to enjoy support hell / frustration mode.
Get her a new PC, and teach her. There isn't that much to teach, especially if you automate most everything and hide IE.
I upgraded my dad from XP to Win 7 last year. Didn't take him long to keep doing what he normally does. Well worth the headaches I've had doing XP support for it
Teaching someone who "just wants it to work" a new OS is going to be more maddening than anything.
Preconfigure the laptop. Enable remote admin / support stuff, so that you can do it from wherever. It is amazing what you can do with remote teaching.
I had to remotely help troubleshoot something for my mom, I just used the webcam to show her what to push on the keyboard, problem solved. Video goes a long way for basic stuff.
Deep freeze kicks ass. http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/standard/
Granted, I use it for my tween-aged nieces on their PC's. Tell Mom and Dad the thaw password so they can run updates and install software, set up some thawed space for My Documents, and forget about it.
They can install every piece of spyware known to man, one reboot and it's all fixed.
Just stick with XP and make an image of the system in a good state. It's easy to do with Ghost. You can either partition the hard drive and create a recovery partition that contains the ghost image, and give her a mechanism to boot into ghost and effect a restore. You could do that with a batch file, or a bootable USB drive, CD-ROM, etc. You could even put the image on a USB drive if that's easier.
As far as data, just set her up with Dropbox so all her data is online and she won't have to worry about backing things up. Or better yet, just set her up with Gmail / Google Docs and all her stuff is in Google.
Ideally you would want to refresh the image with software updates every now and then, but this is probably the easiest way for you to handle the system being easily recoverable from a totally screwed state.
Windows has a feature called Windows Remote Assistance where they send you a token, and then you log into their machine and fix whatever the issue is (unless the issue is network connectivity). It works as long as there isn't an overzealous A/V that blocks it.
You need to get over windows.
Windows is THE main reason you are having trouble supporting your folks from 600 miles away.
I would install linux (Debian if you're pretty seasoned with linux, Ubuntu otherwise), give her a non-admin account, import her "My Documents" folder and "Pictures" folder from windows (and put desktop shortcuts in). Set up a browser, install the same plugins (flash, adblock, what have you), set the homepage and bookmarks up identically, and believe me, an AOL user will be just fine with this.
Explain that at her level of computer knowledge, it's dangerous to go any other route. It is worth giving up the ability to install any one of the thousands of "seasonal screensavers" (spyware with pretty pictures) for windows xp in exchange for peace of mind and reliability.
If you do this, and give them exactly what they need, which is probably a web browser and skype, everyone wins.
As a bonus, remote admin is a snap. Don't ever install any updates (your mom can't anyway without admin access). Keep it simple! Linux (especially Debian and by extension Ubuntu) has come a long way on the desktop and is very user-friendly. My five-year-old son uses it every day and has yet to complain about it.
"windows and mac are not an option": Well what are you really asking then? "How can I keep my mom using windows and aol without having any problems?" Good luck with that. Don't kid yourself.
> Getting my mom to install Team Viewer was not an option
Why would that be a problem? The system should have been set up so that you could manage it remotely. It's Unix. That's kind of what it's for.
The GUI bits might have been hard to pull off but you can certainly manage a Unix box remotely.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
This video should help- it covers many of the problems you may encounter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9R-2X9Bl5w
I personally just moved myself off windows. Then I would tell them "I don't know anything about windows, sorry". Then they would ask me to help and I would "try to help" and just make things worse. Eventually they got the hint and now they don't ask me for help.
Oh, that's true. The whole metro dash thing would really freak them out. Fortuantely Win7 is still viable.
But yeh, at that point Ubuntu or OSX are definitely closer to their wheel-house than WIn8
My children call me (70) for tech support.
Official Pi Ambassador -- inquire for details!
I view this as an extension of the "my house, my rules" principle.
If they want me to run things, then I have to be free to run things. Otherwise they are free to fend for themselves in exactly the same way that they would expect me to if the roles were reversed.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
office runs in desktop mode in 8
You said that you can't install Linux for them -- and in a sense, you're right. And in another sense, you're woo wrong. In 2006, I was tasked with sending roughly 100 laptops to dealers around the world. They needed to run, and run well, despite the fact that, for stupid legacy reasons, they needed administrator-level access to the machines. That being said, they didn't need to *do* much with the machines... which meant that the install footprint was relatively small.
So I cheated. I installed Windows, re-sized the partition down to as small as I could reasonably get it, then installed Linux, also. I then set up grub to offer three (well, really, four) options:
1) Boot Windows (default)
2) Back up the current Windows partition (e.g., "dd if=/dev/sda1 of=winimage.img")
3) Restore the Windows partition from the most recent backup (e.g., "dd if=winimage.img of=/dev/sda1")
4) Linux (set up to OpenVPN to my company's domain if need be)
I can't quite remember how I kicked off 2 & 3 -- it involved booting Linux, and, perhaps, kicking off a script from /etc/rc.local. But the bottom line is it worked like a dream. Infected by virus? WHAM. New image. Installed new, important software? Make a new image. Etc.
Of course, it's not foolproof -- there's a chance you could take an image of an install you didn't know was already broken. And I never bothered with things like multiple on-disk images with datestamps, etc., as the worst-case scenario was "send it back."
But I gotta say -- it tended to work, and work well.
$.02
-- Slarty
You could visit your parents more often!!!
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
After years of malware/spyware/virus issues with my parents XP machine, the computer was at the point of slowness that it was at the requisite reinstall Windows stage again. This time, I decided to install Ubuntu instead with the caveat of "we can always go back to the old system, but give this a try." Six months later and no real worries. They like the simpler interface, and the increased speed. Had a little issue with cups updating and screwing up the printer, but otherwise has been a rousing success. If you want to stay in Windows, free version of logmein works well, but I would highly suggest going the Ubuntu route.
Give soluto (https://www.soluto.com) a whirl, it helps you keep ahead of problems such as all those toolbars and addons that get installed. You can keep track of things and arrange to install and upgrade certain programs remotely. I'm often called in to provide assistance for family and colleagues kids' machines, and getting soluto on those machines has reduced the time getting called to fix the basics. They have recently added in remote assistance too, but I haven't had a chance to try it (normally use teamviewer)
whenever my mom does that to me i "jokingly" respond "so you paid for my college because you were expecting something in return, not because i'm your son and you love me?"
fuck that logic. parents are SUPPOSED to provide for their kids. then their kids pay this back by providing for THEIR OWN kids. that's how love works.
actually, my scholarships paid for *most* of my college anyway. >_>
I put my parents on Debian Linux and didn't give them the root password.
For web browsing, email, word-processing, it's great. And that's pretty much all they do anyway.
1. I would strongly recommend an upgrade to Windows 7. If that's not possible (and I know the submitter didn't want anything but XP) then XP it is.
2. Install a router that has the ability to VPN in. Might require dyndns and knowledge of openvpn (dd-wrt user here.) There are other ways around this - port forwarding to the host machine and the like, but nothing short of being on the actual PC beats getting onto the same network as the affected PC.
3. Use some software to take a snapshot of the PC running in good condition. This might require running the PC for a few weeks so Mom gets everything right, then snapshot it. This would be the easy "remote fix" for a PC that is totally screwed and you have no other option.
4. Get a few backup drives and have Mom cycle them out. Once a week should be fine. Bonus points for getting them into either a safe or a safety deposit box. This fixes most lost file issues if #3 needs to be used to bring the PC back to life.
5. Run through a disaster program and have a document handy to cover #3 above. If all else fails, KNOW that Mom can walk through the document when you can't get to the machine at all without any bit of prodding.
6. Invest in good antivirus and anti-malware. I typically use Security Essentials, but I also know that they're probably the top target for malware - seeing as free guarantees a wide user base. MAB would help snare some things that good AV just doesn't catch.
If you truly don't have the time to invest, creating an alternative option to what you have now is going to be all the more difficult. I typically play clean-up on my parent's PC and network over the holidays when I visit, and can remote in when away - and they're fairly savvy. My most recent fix was a router that wouldn't maintain any user-side connections for more than 2 minutes - new router, problem solved; but I had to be there to see it. My parents just thought the internet was slow....
Karnal
An iPad is a poor PC replacement for most old folks. They don't need to be doing tasks like email on a small screen with a touch "keyboard".
paintball
I dont live 400 miles from my mom I live about ten minutes away but I installed log me in on hee laptop so I can do stuff for her remotely or teach her remotely it is a great tool and free
If not, how can you let her on AOL?
Flash is largely a non-issue at this point. I'm all for it passing into the great beyond. Good riddance. So far I haven't heard any serious complaints. Moreover, my time and her time are actually worth something. Lack of hassles has actual monetary value. Flash games and the like have been a major source of headaches and repair sessions.
Is virtualization a possibility?
Have the OS virtualized and running on a different base system (ie: Virtual Windows XP running on OS X or Linux). Then have the home folder be linked out to the underlying OS.
Everytime the system is booted up, restore the virtual OS from a backup.
This prevents her from installing anything except to her home folder (or whatever other folders you link out to the underlying OS).
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
My Mom is about 600 miles from me. I got an old IBM Thinkpad, removed the dead HDD, and put a Linux Live CD in the drive. I made a second CD for backup. Yeah - it's slow. But all she does is boot it, and launch FireFox. gMail, Google Docs, and Facebook lets her keep in touch with all the kids and grandkids. When the machine dies, I'll send her the next piece-of-crap laptop I have and she's back in business. I might give her a Chromebook.
My life is so much easier. No virus problems. No hard drive crashes. No backup required. When she does need help, it is usually with gMail, gDocs or FB. I log onto those sites and fix her problems.
She's used the the slow boot times. She turns it on and goes to the kitchen to make coffee, make a cake or .... whatever. She love that she can just turn it off. And the battery-that-lasts-15-minutes is fine for her. She treats it like a portable desktop (requiring AC), so It is like a built-in UPS. She loves that she can unplug it, move it to the kitchen, plug it back in - and it keeps going! Amazing stuff!
Place nail here >+
Just buy her a Mac. All of those tech-support type of questions will just go away,
Expecially if she buys a new Mac with the "3-years of on-hands support" from the Mac store. They will take care of the minor hiccups. And, she'll be in a computational environment that does not change dramatically from year-to-year (as MS7-8 did).
Anyone over 50 just wants stability of interaction in their computer, above all else. Mac delivers this.
i use 10zig thin clients running windows embedded for all the instructors at the cosmetology school i administer. you can load basic software onto them and then lock the flash. a simple reboot sends it back to the way you set it up. http://www.10zig.com/product/hyper-v_microsoft_remotefx/ you can also use SteadyState, http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24373 this sets the computer into a kiosk mode where a simple reboot puts it back to the snapshot.
A tried and true method for migrating parents from IE to a safer browser is to just install firefox or chrome, then change it's desktop icon and name to "Internet Explorer". They then go on to seemlessly use it, thinking it's just a slight interface change that happened in an upgrade... Too bad AOL's interface is probably a bit too different to pull that trick off. As for tying up permissions: unfortunately, WinXP guest account was never fully implemented. Last year, I tried setting up my parents to using the guest account for most activities and logging in as admin when they needed more permissions. They understood, but it caused a lot of problems with certain things not functioning between the accounts. The printer alone turned out to be an intractable pain in the ass. Win7 with "classic shell" is probably a better option.
Why not set up a Linux, or Windows 7 Host machine that only you have an admin account on, and then your mom's Windows XP configuration in a Virtual Machine? WMware supports taking OS snapshots, supports remote desktop viewing, supports automatic USB device redirection from Host to Guest OS, and many other features that will make your role much easier, and more time efficient, while simultaneously not requiring any major re-training for your parent. And I am certain that other VM software has a very similar feature set and appeal.
- James
I empathize; I have an uncle who's about 100 miles away. So this is an old XP machine? Buy a removable hard drive tray system with two trays and a 2nd hard drive. Ghost or CloneZilla her current hard drive to the new one. Give her a short tutorial on turning the key in the lock and swapping the hard drive. Provide her with a padded box to put the hard drive tray into. When she mucks it up again, have her swap hard drives and then ship you the mucked up one. Fix at your leisure, send back. Repeat the process for the rest of her life...
Gave a Mac to my father, setup a linux Debian 7 in the infected computer of girlfriend. Problem solved. People use mostly the browser and skype. The browser works quite the same, except it got no virus.
Flash is largely a non-issue at this point. I'm all for it passing into the great beyond. Good riddance. So far I haven't heard any serious complaints. Moreover, my time and her time are actually worth something. Lack of hassles has actual monetary value. Flash games and the like have been a major source of headaches and repair sessions.
Bollocks. If you want to look at most online pron, for instance, you need Flash. If you want to play a lot of online games, you need Flash. It's just wishful thinking that because there is now an option, Flash has suddenly become irrelevant for many users. I know everyone here can get round these limitations, or simply isn't interested in a site that requires Flash on principle, but that's not how most of the world thinks.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I don't know. I went through this with my mother-in-law recently... as in the past month. I went with Windows 8 and locked her down. I thought about going with another O.S., but in the end I decided to go with something we could both be somewhat reasonably comfortable with. In the end, I actually liked giving her Windows 8 because it limited her so much. That was quite a shock for me. I wouldn't recommend it straight out the box for very many people, but with her, it worked rather well. Another factor is that I just got a laptop with Windows 8 a couple of months before she got her laptop and I was able to familiarize myself with it. I'm not really a Mac or Linux person, although I do use Mint from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Freeze_(software)
Make two partitions, one for system, other for My Documents. Install everything, set it up, update it, make a backup, freeze the system and tell them. I do not like antivirus, but you do as you please, just remember to install them to unfrozen partition.
"You can do everything you want, but the computer will reset everything as it was after restart."
Hope it helps...
Doing a good job is like spilling coffee on a dark suit, you feel warm all over, but nobody notices.
Linux is your option. Probably Mint or Zorin. End of problem. Ten minutes instruction time, then see you at Thanksgiving, mom.
Put Team Viewer on it, just in case.
i use it with my mom who can't teach honors calculus but can't figure out changing desktop icons
What *can* she do?
All mocking aside, I'll give another upvote for LogMeIn. Unfortunately, they are switching to a limit of 10 computers in the free edition, so I'll have to trim back a few of the older ones.
vPro only works when you've got all the supporting pieces to allow it to work. And the remote access part of it is under the AMT umbrella.
Got that K-series Core i5/i7? vPro isn't going to work. Got a Z75 chipset? Again, vPro isn't baked in and it won't work. Got a computer with an older Core2 CPU? There's an extensive list of requirements which probably were never shipped with consumer-grade computers when new (it was quite specific).
Even if we assume the computer has all the right hardware, you still need to enable and configure it in the BIOS (if it isn't enabled by default), then make sure you've got access through the router/firewall. Remember, we're assuming a relative is calling for help on their home computer.
My sources are unreliable, but their information is fascinating. -- Ashleigh Brilliant
I thought it looks German. ... you're hungry again a week later.
Problem with German food is
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Gentoo.
Linux could actually do the work even taking into account the "no Linux because too addicted to AOL and XP stuff".
Just have linux run in Kiosk mode and stack a virtual machine above it.
(We actually exactly used "Gentoo + bare X with only a minimalist window manager and nothing else + VMware" for a computer lab in one uni where I worked in).
- You get all the niceties of Linux: rock solid environment, multiple options for remote management, backups and the like.
(For example, using a CoW file system with versionning like btrfs to store the virtual disk, store her data on a directory shared between linux host and windows guest, and thus backup said directory using rsync or dropbox or whatever).
- She gets the windows interface she's used to. (Just remember to correctly configure pass-through for USB) (and in fact, in her use case, she won't even be needing 3D VM acceleration that much)
- Windows will still be contained in an isolated environment which help limiting the damage in case of hacking (In my "shared directories" example above, all the credentials used to backup [ssh keys for rsync, or dropbox credential] are stored BEYOND windows's reach outside of the virtual box). Even the network access can be NATed to limit what Windows can see and reach from the environing device.
- The mother is really an interesting user for this use case, because (as a person addicted to her old ways), she's not the kind of user who'll need complex interaction between say her Windows and a Bluetooth-enabled gadget that could push the limits of the virtual machine.
- Last but not least, lots of VM environment offer built-in remoting possibilities. For example opensource VirtualBox has built-in VNC support, commercial Sun/Oracle VirtualBox features RDP. Even if Windows is fucked up beyond any recognition, it's still possible to remote to the Linux host over SSH, and open port forwarding to the VNC or RDP service of the VM to see what's happening. You get basically KVMoIP possibilities.
- You can also build lots of hardening and checking in the Linux host (like periodic check of the "smart" status and scans to check the health of hard drives, scanning the windows host for viruses from outside even in case of rook-kitting of windows, etc).
It requires a little bit of hacking to get it working. But once it works, such a configuration is simply a wonder.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Why would you need a CoW file system and a Linux host machine when they could just install Windows and a good antivirus scanner?
There's nothing such as a perfect virus scanner. The machine will get infected, eventually. Specially with a clueless user who likes to install every single cute kitten screen save she finds as in today's ask-slashdot.
COW:
Copy-on-Write solves a completely different question:
- local backups
With CoW file systems (like BTRFS) snapshotting come almost for free.
Want to keep the current state of a tree for backup purpose (so you can go back in case of catastrophe) ?
Just make a snapshot (and in BTRFS, that's just flagging the directory as a snapshot. No data being copied around. Data will be copied if files get written on and the current state diverges from the snapshot. The whole snapshoting process is barely noticeable)
The catastrophe did happen and some data got corrupted (like a 'ransom' type virus encrypted random file asks for money to give decryption key) and you want to roll back to prior the infection ?
Just use the last good snapshot as the 'current' (instant use).
The same can also be obtained at the disk level by using a CoW partitioning scheme, like Linux Volume Manager (LVM).
Just tell the virtual machine to use a real block device for its virtual disk instead of a file, and then use LVM's snapshoting facility.
Without CoW, the same kind of speed and easy to use could be achieved using rsync and hardlinks and some scripting (as done on *nix before the advent of CoW systems) but that requires hardlinks, and requires one to write some script.
The same backup/restore routine on Windows would require using a backup software, which needs to copy data around and store files into an archive or extract file from it. Backup procedures are slow and use resources.
Linux host machine :
As long as everything works okay, a pure Windows XP machine and a configuration running Windows inside a VM are indistinguishable from ma's point of view, and thus indeed, there's no difference.
It's once things start to break apart that suddenly the virtual solution show its advantages.
- No matter how much the Windows guest gets broken, you can still remotely access to the Linux host and work from here. On the pure machine, you're stuck on trying to get an explanation from ma over the phone.
- Your administrative access comes from 'outside' the guest. If the guest can't be trusted any more (because it's infected with a virus which uses root-kits to hide it self) you can still trust your host (the virus will try to hide its presence from programs running within Windows. Linux will still see everything as-is). You could even run some periodic checks using an antivirus executed from within the host.
- Everything is virtualisable. On a windows machine, advanced administration might require installing special software or jumping through some complex hoops. Ma's favourite crappy screen saver might not have been written to accomodate them and may crash because the data it uses (the gallery of cute kitten pics it makes a slideshow of) aren't stored locally but are pulled from a network share on the nice NAS box your bought her to save her precious data on. In a virtual machine, Windows can be persuaded to think that it runs from a simple disk, no matter what the actual complexity is on the linux side everything is abstracted and the crappy software runs too.
- Remote access is built in directly in the virtual machine. No matter how much un-bootable Windows becomes (i just wanted my cute kitten picture, but now all a get is a blue screen filled with white text! what's happening? i want my kittens back!) you can still SSH to the Linux box and (tunnel to) see remotely what's happening over VNC or RDP (depending on what your virtual machine does).
Don't think about it like the equivalent of sharing screen in skype (which still requires a Windows working well enough for skype to be still usable.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]