Although people know me as a writer of fiction in my personal life, my day job is fixing computers, so when someone I know needs work done, I often get the call. Recently someone I used to work with as a computer consultant called me up to help install a home PC for a sibling in town. Because I’m nice and/or stupid, I did it.
The experience was not bad at all, since the user was kind and understanding. What stuck in my head however is how not ready for use the average Windows installation is. They try to get the user going with some kind of video-based training, but that isn’t going to work for most people who find it horribly tedious and would rather play. My approach is different: I clear out the unnecessary, organize the computer appropriately, and then let ‘em rip so they can learn by playing.
Here’s a list of important steps:
1. Disable all crapware, even if it seems useful. Rip the installed programs list down to the bare minimum.
2. Update all drivers. I’ve rarely had to roll back.
3. Set the system swap file to be twice the size of the memory installed in the machine.
4. Add a firewall, install FireFox or Safari or Opera to replace Internet Explorer, and remove virus scanners.
5. Add Pegasus Mail, Thunderbird or Opera mail to replace outlook, and disable HTML mail and .exe, .vbs and .js attachments.
6. Clear all extra icons off the desktop. They need My Computer, My Documents and the Trash and that’s it.
7. Uncheck all protocols except TCP/IP in the network configuration.
8. Set up a user account with Administrator rights, but keep the Administrator account in case they need bailing out.
9. Set up a guest account for drunken friends, idiots and clueless family members to use. You can set the password to TOIDI or NOROM to really fool ‘em.
10. Run HijackThis and remove all unnecessary start up actions.
11. Go through your task manager, using this guide or one like it, and remove unnecessary programs.
This will take you the better part of three hours, but if you do this and then backup the system, you will have set your friends on the path toward sanity instead of confusion. They’ll thank you someday.
Originally written on Slashdot