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I know this will get some downvotes, but I'm the IT person in my close family. Used to get calls all the time to fix slow laptops, CD drives not working, keyboa

I know this will get some downvotes, but I'm the IT person in my close family. Used to get calls all the time to fix slow laptops, CD drives not working, keyboard not working, system not booting, popups everywhere, apps crashing, you name it. Each would take insane amounts of time to troubleshoot. And then sometimes their machines just needed to be upgraded because they were running the new office, and the new skype and the new chrome, antivirus, etc, and the 3yo system could barely keep up, but they just wanted a quick fix, not spend $$$. I even installed teamviewer and some support tools to save the untold amounts of time. Then I bought macs for everyone, installed iWork, 1Password and taught them how to use them. haven't heard a peep. One of the best purchases of my life.

aloknnikhil 3y ago
100% agree on Macs. Personally I have never had to play IT support when my parents had a Mac. Now with Windows, it’s basically whack-a-mole. Some days the camera stops working and some days WhatsApp doesn’t startup. And they are not power users by any means. So they don’t muck around with their setup either.
- wccrawford 3y ago
  We've had to do tech support for family using Macs, but I'll admit it's been less than my Windows-using family. I have 1 family member in mind in particular that I think would have been better off with a Mac. And I probably would have been better off, too, because I could tell them I don't know much about them and send them to the store with a clear conscience. ;)
willio58 3y ago
Did this with my dad and it’s been years since the last IT call.
jeroenhd 3y ago
> they just wanted a quick fix, not spend $$$. > Then I bought macs for everyone I bet you would've gotten similar results if you spent the same amount of money on Windows computers. For example, my dad is using an 8 year old Windows computer that he got second hand. It works absolutely fine because it wasn't underspecced at the time it was produced. People underestimate the difference investing in good hardware makes. They see $300 computers and expect them to work just as well as a $1200 top of the line machine, and then get frustrated at how slow their Celeron machine gets after getting their expectations crushed. Getting mad at a "broken" computer is easier than admitting you messed up and made a terrible investment.
- tenebrisalietum 3y ago
  > People underestimate the difference investing in good hardware makes. Yes, but ... > Getting mad at a "broken" computer is easier than admitting you messed up and made a terrible investment. Mid take. Windows still sucks on $1200 hardware, just faster. You still get the same crappy UI that shuffles around every couple of updates just because, dangerous legacy stuff like ActiveX, SMB1, and IE lurking just beneath the surface, ads in the Start Menu, random updates, forced reboots, etc.
  - skeaker 3y ago
    That's beside the point, isn't it? I don't think anybody is arguing that Windows doesn't have issues
    - tenebrisalietum 3y ago
      No, it's definitely within the point.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    I agree that Windows sucks. I also think it sucks less than macOS, but Microsoft is working hard to change that. Linux sucks less in some ways but sucks a lot more in many others. None of the operating systems seem to want to support you as the user anymore, they're all part of a ploy to buy more hardware, rent more software, and move everything to some kind of cloud solution you'll never be able to get rid of. However, ActiveX, SMB1, and IE11 haven't been an issue since Windows 11, and you need to go out of your way to find them in Windows 10. IE has been dead for over a year. Even before that, Microsoft received widespread criticism when they hid IE11 by default, because users didn't want to change away from IE for some godforsaken reason. The Windows kernel is a software engineering marvel and Windows has become incredibly stable on modern hardware. The shell on top of it has become a victim of terrible enshittification that started in Windows 8, or maybe 10.
- Etheryte 3y ago
  The question in my opinion is not really about specs — no matter how much you spend on your hardware, you can't, pardon my French, take the shitbox out of Windows. Device manager and registry still being a thing, reboots to install software, ads in the start menu, etc are a good example of how Windows is not a system for human users. It's amazing how much backwards compatibility they've offered over the decades, yes, but it's also got them holding a lot of smelly baggage.
asenchi 3y ago
Same here. About 10 years ago I told everyone I did IT support for that I would no longer work on Windows. 23 people ended up buying Mac and converting their entire lives to Apple's ecosystem. I get called maybe once every 6 months with a question about some slow performing app or what they should upgrade too. Best decision I ever made.
MawKKe 3y ago
Same, XP was replaced with Ubuntu and support call rate went from "at least one per week" to "once per year"
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
I also bought MacBooks to my close family. To my amazement, two of them installed Windows on it through Parallels app. It works slow but at least they can use the programs they want.
aequitas 3y ago
Can’t recommend this enough. I recently “invested” in some second hand iMacs for my partner and kids. And by invested I mean I spend ~€100 on two 2011 iMacs each. No top of the line specs, just the basic model i5s with SSD. They run great for 10 year old machines. Have a decent enough screen resolution. Still an up to date enough OS though not the latest. When I use them occasionally I don’t notice a difference in normal browsing or usage. Migration from the small MacBook (also 2011) was a breeze with assistant. They all run time machine to my Linux NAS so no worries there. I’m considering doing this for my parent as well but it’s hard to get them away from their old & trusted Office apps.
- jusonchan81 3y ago
  Office - if you are referring to Microsoft Office, they are available on Mac
christophilus 3y ago
MacBooks and Linux on any reasonable device have both proven to be solid choices for me when it comes to supporting family members. Windows and Chromebooks both have sucked hard for various reasons. Chromebooks go obsolete. Linux is forever.
tcmart14 3y ago
Gotta agree. My wife is not tech savvy, and most of my family isn't either. The amount of tech support I do has dropped since everyone went to the Apple platform. About the only thing I have to do is to tell everyone to hold off on major OS upgrades. macOS sure isn't a panacea. But wait about 2-3 months after a new major OS release version and it is a pretty smooth experience.
jacamera 3y ago
This was also me. It's 100% true. Works even better when you can just set them up with an iPad and a keyboard case! Everyone is much happier. Windows without Active Directory and Group Policy management is a straight up nightmare. Even with good hardware the default Windows config, especially the Home editions, is just such garbage compared to macOS.
thunky 3y ago
> Then I bought macs for everyone Chromebooks would have been cheaper.
baremetal 3y ago
I put my parents on Linux about 10 years ago. They don't know the difference. And I rarely if ever have to fix anything.
matsemann 3y ago
This comment and all child comments reek of a logical fallacy. If your family had stayed on Windows, would you have gotten more requests today than with the current setup? It's disingenuous to compare Windows of many years ago (on probably some crappy underspecced and bloated laptop) vs a modern OS (on expensive hardware). Data point of one: I also used to be the IT person in my family. Still is. But I never get calls anymore. Things generally just work. And most of them run Windows. Actually, I've done more support for people using MacOS. Each upgrade inevitably break something. Only way to have a hands-off Mac experience is to tell everyone to never upgrade their OS..

aloknnikhil 3y ago

100% agree on Macs. Personally I have never had to play IT support when my parents had a Mac. Now with Windows, it’s basically whack-a-mole. Some days the camera stops working and some days WhatsApp doesn’t startup. And they are not power users by any means. So they don’t muck around with their setup either.

wccrawford 3y ago
We've had to do tech support for family using Macs, but I'll admit it's been less than my Windows-using family. I have 1 family member in mind in particular that I think would have been better off with a Mac. And I probably would have been better off, too, because I could tell them I don't know much about them and send them to the store with a clear conscience. ;)

willio58 3y ago

Did this with my dad and it’s been years since the last IT call.

jeroenhd 3y ago

> they just wanted a quick fix, not spend $$$. > Then I bought macs for everyone I bet you would've gotten similar results if you spent the same amount of money on Windows computers. For example, my dad is using an 8 year old Windows computer that he got second hand. It works absolutely fine because it wasn't underspecced at the time it was produced. People underestimate the difference investing in good hardware makes. They see $300 computers and expect them to work just as well as a $1200 top of the line machine, and then get frustrated at how slow their Celeron machine gets after getting their expectations crushed. Getting mad at a "broken" computer is easier than admitting you messed up and made a terrible investment.

tenebrisalietum 3y ago
> People underestimate the difference investing in good hardware makes. Yes, but ... > Getting mad at a "broken" computer is easier than admitting you messed up and made a terrible investment. Mid take. Windows still sucks on $1200 hardware, just faster. You still get the same crappy UI that shuffles around every couple of updates just because, dangerous legacy stuff like ActiveX, SMB1, and IE lurking just beneath the surface, ads in the Start Menu, random updates, forced reboots, etc.
- skeaker 3y ago
  That's beside the point, isn't it? I don't think anybody is arguing that Windows doesn't have issues
  - tenebrisalietum 3y ago
    No, it's definitely within the point.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  I agree that Windows sucks. I also think it sucks less than macOS, but Microsoft is working hard to change that. Linux sucks less in some ways but sucks a lot more in many others. None of the operating systems seem to want to support you as the user anymore, they're all part of a ploy to buy more hardware, rent more software, and move everything to some kind of cloud solution you'll never be able to get rid of. However, ActiveX, SMB1, and IE11 haven't been an issue since Windows 11, and you need to go out of your way to find them in Windows 10. IE has been dead for over a year. Even before that, Microsoft received widespread criticism when they hid IE11 by default, because users didn't want to change away from IE for some godforsaken reason. The Windows kernel is a software engineering marvel and Windows has become incredibly stable on modern hardware. The shell on top of it has become a victim of terrible enshittification that started in Windows 8, or maybe 10.
Etheryte 3y ago
The question in my opinion is not really about specs — no matter how much you spend on your hardware, you can't, pardon my French, take the shitbox out of Windows. Device manager and registry still being a thing, reboots to install software, ads in the start menu, etc are a good example of how Windows is not a system for human users. It's amazing how much backwards compatibility they've offered over the decades, yes, but it's also got them holding a lot of smelly baggage.

asenchi 3y ago

Same here. About 10 years ago I told everyone I did IT support for that I would no longer work on Windows. 23 people ended up buying Mac and converting their entire lives to Apple's ecosystem. I get called maybe once every 6 months with a question about some slow performing app or what they should upgrade too. Best decision I ever made.

MawKKe 3y ago

Same, XP was replaced with Ubuntu and support call rate went from "at least one per week" to "once per year"

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

I also bought MacBooks to my close family. To my amazement, two of them installed Windows on it through Parallels app. It works slow but at least they can use the programs they want.

aequitas 3y ago

Can’t recommend this enough. I recently “invested” in some second hand iMacs for my partner and kids. And by invested I mean I spend ~€100 on two 2011 iMacs each. No top of the line specs, just the basic model i5s with SSD. They run great for 10 year old machines. Have a decent enough screen resolution. Still an up to date enough OS though not the latest. When I use them occasionally I don’t notice a difference in normal browsing or usage. Migration from the small MacBook (also 2011) was a breeze with assistant. They all run time machine to my Linux NAS so no worries there. I’m considering doing this for my parent as well but it’s hard to get them away from their old & trusted Office apps.

jusonchan81 3y ago
Office - if you are referring to Microsoft Office, they are available on Mac

christophilus 3y ago

MacBooks and Linux on any reasonable device have both proven to be solid choices for me when it comes to supporting family members. Windows and Chromebooks both have sucked hard for various reasons. Chromebooks go obsolete. Linux is forever.

tcmart14 3y ago

Gotta agree. My wife is not tech savvy, and most of my family isn't either. The amount of tech support I do has dropped since everyone went to the Apple platform. About the only thing I have to do is to tell everyone to hold off on major OS upgrades. macOS sure isn't a panacea. But wait about 2-3 months after a new major OS release version and it is a pretty smooth experience.

jacamera 3y ago

This was also me. It's 100% true. Works even better when you can just set them up with an iPad and a keyboard case! Everyone is much happier. Windows without Active Directory and Group Policy management is a straight up nightmare. Even with good hardware the default Windows config, especially the Home editions, is just such garbage compared to macOS.

thunky 3y ago

> Then I bought macs for everyone Chromebooks would have been cheaper.

baremetal 3y ago

I put my parents on Linux about 10 years ago. They don't know the difference. And I rarely if ever have to fix anything.

matsemann 3y ago

This comment and all child comments reek of a logical fallacy. If your family had stayed on Windows, would you have gotten more requests today than with the current setup? It's disingenuous to compare Windows of many years ago (on probably some crappy underspecced and bloated laptop) vs a modern OS (on expensive hardware). Data point of one: I also used to be the IT person in my family. Still is. But I never get calls anymore. Things generally just work. And most of them run Windows. Actually, I've done more support for people using MacOS. Each upgrade inevitably break something. Only way to have a hands-off Mac experience is to tell everyone to never upgrade their OS..