Started helping elderly people (all retired) in the early 2000's with their Windows PCs and as you guessed it, quickly became the computer guy as word spread. T

Started helping elderly people (all retired) in the early 2000's with their Windows PCs and as you guessed it, quickly became the computer guy as word spread. The service was "free" ... Payment was tea, some-carbs and a nice story if it organically came up. After the first few service calls, my repair formula became: - backup data - clean install windows + restore data - create user with only User permissions - create strong admin password shared to both I and them - rename the admin user account to root :) - enabled "run as" option in context menu - setup that HP printer with just a print driver! lol Issues went poof! No more accidentally installing those "${YIKES}.exe" files Some would "sabotage" their PC's just so I could pay them a visit. That was actually fun lol. I appreciated the childish nature of their antiques like "the mouse doesn't work" or "my printer stopped working" when clearly they unplugged it. If anyone's missed it, giving uneducated computer users admin/root perms by default is a bad idea. A little education goes a long way. Those windows-pcs remained rock solid/fast and matched any linux-pcs uptime. Watching those "pesky computer smart grand kids" being stopped dead in their tracks from mindlessly installing "games" was weirdly satisfying. You get that "ah ha! it was you feeling" The typical use for those computers was word, excel, some-app-to-print-cards-for-grand-kids, aol/msn chat, media-player, and some simple games. Am equally comfortable in windows||*nix. and harbor impure thoughts of linux as DOS and the desktop-environment as windows 2000 experience (WoL - Windows on Linux)