Windows 7: Windows 7 setup for ignorant user

My neighbor is completely computer illiterate. About once a month, she brings her computer to me and says "idk what happened its full a viruses". I take a peak and sure enough it is. I launch system restore, once that completes a boot-time full system scan with avast and its good to go. Im sick of fixing the damn thing due to her stupidity...but she's such a nice lady I'd feel too bad saying no lol. Anyone have any suggestions to make her install a bit more bulletproof?

You can't make any machine even mildly "bulletproof" without the user's cooperation.

I have had good results with a few users by installing this;

http://www.avira.com/

The free version is very good.

Regards....Mike Connor

As Mike says you can't make any system bullet proof. Have you sat down with her and gone through her set up explaining the benefits of keeping the system up to date and not clicking on everything in sight.

What OS is she using, if Windows 7 why not suggest she joins this forum so people can help her get the best out of her system without putting it in danger of catching any nasties floating around.

Yeah unfortunately, as Mike said its hard to do without the user cooperation. Short of restricting internet usage(parental controls) and setting limited user access it would be difficult. There are other programs you(she) could use, but then again it would take cooperation on her part to actually use them regularly.

For a computer illiterate - get a Mac!

Windows 7 is clearly not for her.

If you can't afford a Mac, but can't handle viruses, get Linux!

something like this:



MoonOS fits the bill

MoonOS Linux - Download - Linux Freedom

Screenshots

moonOS Main Edition Screenshots, screen capture - Softpedia

Try the live CD/DVD before installing.

SPYBOT Search & Destroy. Innoculation with that filters out a lot of malicious web traffic. The only thing I don't like about it is I haven't figured out a way to automatically keep the innoculation up to date.

Have your friend take it to Geeks next time she has problems. That is how you update a user. They will not want to do that again. $$$$

This is about as bulletproof as you can get;

eyeOS – Web Desktop, Cloud Computing Operating System and Web Office »

Fine if it does what you need.

Worst that can happen is that you have to install an OS and browser.

Regards....Mike Connor

Uh well aside from all the drastic measures listed above...

1) Install MS Security Essentials.
2) In IE, make the "Internet Zone" more restrictive. In fact if she dosn;t need to install programs from the net, set it all the way to the bottom of the slider! THEN, go with her though her normal web pages she uses and add them to the "trusted" zone.

Those two things will eliminate about 99.99% of the normal ways people infect themselves. The only hassle becomes, if you need to get to a new javascript laden site, you need to add it to the trusted sites list wich takes a few clicks and she may or may not be able to do that herself.

Make sure you're running Malwarebytes in addition, as it is best at catching today's worst infections. In fact, have her update and run a full scan with it before bringing it to you and she'll likely not need to.