Malware killed Microsoft Windows 7

[Welly Wu]

I will install GNOME 3 and K Desktop Environment on his PC later today.

[buzzingrobot]

I don't blame you for not wanting to do another Windows install. Takes hours. When you'r done it's, well, still Windows.

The take-away here is that no matter what anti-malware software someone might run, they can't be protected from malware if they invite it in.

If your friend is like most folks, he probably uses the same few applications all the time. Unity should be fine for that. Docks are popular for a reason. Get those icons in the Launcher, remove icons of apps he won't use. Show him how to click to open, click to open another app, click the same icons to move between open apps, and how to close an app. Maybe set up workspaces and show him how to open apps in each and move between them.

[makitso]

I know this is a bit off topic but... I also have a retired friend who had an old Toshiba dual core laptop. She is not very computer literate and I did not want to get into a support cycle with her. So, I installed a copy of SolusOS 2 Alpha 7 on her system along with docky. I customized the system a bit for her, locked it down and gave her and her oldest grandson about an hour's worth of training. Well, I have not had one service call in 6 months. I asked her grandson if she uses the computer and he said yes, she is always on it.

[Linuxratty]

I sdon't blame you one bit. There comes a point when enough is enough!

[Welly Wu]

I re-installed Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 64 bit on my other friend's Hewlett Packard desktop PC and it took three days to download and install everything to the point where he was back to where he was before his PC broke. I'm not spending my Labor Day doing Microsoft related tasks. It's just too much work. It would take me the rest of this week to re-install Windows 7 on my best friend's ASUS K50IJ notebook PC and I don't want to do that all week.

I've got better things to do with my life this week.

Microsoft Windows including 8 take too long to re-install from scratch and all of the software applications included. It takes a week to get it back together again and to test that everything works properly. That's insane!

Ubuntu only takes 1 hour to re-install and to get all of the software applications installed and configured properly. That's it. I'm already done with my work.

I don't want to install GNOME 3 or K Desktop Environment. Simple is better and Ubuntu Unity and Lubuntu desktop environment are sufficient for my best friend's needs. He's old and retired so I don't want to confuse him with too many desktop environments. He's the type of guy that complains if a button isn't where it's supposed to be and he'll e-mail me or call me just to troubleshoot simple problems like these issues.

It's not worth it.

[aysiu]

I know people here are more inclined to go with Ubuntu than Windows, but if you're in a situation in which you're supporting a Windows user, and you do not want to constantly reinstall from scratch, take the working Windows installation and use CloneZilla to clone that to an external hard drive.

Next time the Windows installation gets borked, you can then use CloneZilla to clone the working installation back. Takes only 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how much space is used on the drive. Still a pain, but it's far less of a pain than installing Windows from scratch.

[mamamia88]

I re-installed Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 64 bit on my other friend's Hewlett Packard desktop PC and it took three days to download and install everything to the point where he was back to where he was before his PC broke. I'm not spending my Labor Day doing Microsoft related tasks. It's just too much work. It would take me the rest of this week to re-install Windows 7 on my best friend's ASUS K50IJ notebook PC and I don't want to do that all week.

I've got better things to do with my life this week.

Microsoft Windows including 8 take too long to re-install from scratch and all of the software applications included. It takes a week to get it back together again and to test that everything works properly. That's insane!

Ubuntu only takes 1 hour to re-install and to get all of the software applications installed and configured properly. That's it. I'm already done with my work the same principles of security are basically the same on all operating systems ie don't give the user more permissions than they need.

I don't want to install GNOME 3 or K Desktop Environment. Simple is better and Ubuntu Unity and Lubuntu desktop environment are sufficient for my best friend's needs. He's old and retired so I don't want to confuse him with too many desktop environments. He's the type of guy that complains if a button isn't where it's supposed to be and he'll e-mail me or call me just to troubleshoot simple problems like these issues.

It's not worth it.

It's not really that difficult to be honest. The real pita is when you do a fresh install and not all updates are installed in one go. You have to reboot check for updates again reboot again and wait for a usable computer. Otherwise while it's installing just go on another ocmputer download the exes and drivers you need copy them all to flash drive and when it's done just click next next next until it's all setup properly. Not really complicated at all. And as long as he ain't running stuff he has no idea what it is he should be fine. Not trying to defend windows or anything it's just not as bad as people think it is. Sure you might have to take a few extra precautions to keep it clean but it's not hard if you research it a bit.

[aysiu]

I think the real issue with Windows is that you can't really set up to install and then go. You have to, as mamamia88 points out, constantly keep checking back in. Oh, all those Windows updates didn't install, have to reboot. Oh, the wizard for that program started up, let me click through all the steps. Oh, I have to wait for that program to finish installing before I can install this program? Oh, I have to wait until that program fully uninstalls before I can uninstall another program?

Kind of a pain. I do this sort of thing every week at work. It isn't simple.

In Ubuntu, you can just install Synaptic Package Manager, mark certain things to install and other things to uninstall and then click Apply Changes. Or, if you're really worried you'll be prompted for things, just set up a command with a bunch of && and -y flags, and it'll run in the background, and you won't have to keep checking back.

[zer010]

A few things said are a little confusing to me, please explain.

I may wind up setting him up with his Netflix, Hulu Plus, and Spotify Premium accounts tomorrow in addition to some other software applications that I think he may need.

Please do tell how you intend on setting him up with Netflix in *buntu. Does the WINE workaround somehow work for you?

First, it was...

I installed VLC and Lubuntu desktop environment.

Then it's this...

I will install GNOME 3 and K Desktop Environment on his PC later today.

Why??? Granted, I'm particularly fond of LXDE, but it seems you don't have a clear path laid out. I'd stick with the Lubuntu layout for right now and see how it goes. If he complains about features that other DE's have that LXDE doesn't, then you might look into something else.

Another thing I'm a little confused about is the choice to use 12.04. Sure, it's an LTS and it's still supported for a little while longer, but I've yet to have any real issues with 13.04. Then again, I do wait about a month after release to install/upgrade on my machine. Unless there's an issue with the PAE flag, I see no reason to resort to a 1 year old release.

[mamamia88]

Oh some advice to make ubuntu as simple as possible for a beginner add the line

alias update='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade'

to your .bashrc file in home and reboot. So to update the entire system all he has to do is type update,enter his password, and hit y when prompted.