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Tech support for friend - Operating system knowledge
A few years back a friend of mine was stilling running his business on an ancient and creaking Windows XP computer. It was a mess. Fortunately, I had just resurrected a Windows 7 machine which a gave to him and it basically kept his business going, computer wise.
Recently, he asked for help with his home system - and even *older* Windows XP system. I was able to cobble together a Linux Mint system for him. Although he was completely unfamiliar with Linux I was able to get him up in running in Mint. Linux Mint looks and acts very similar to Windows so I thought he'd be okay. It was a lot faster with more memory, more cores in the microprocessor and a solid state hard drive (ssd).
However, the system started to have intermittent problems booting up. I've occasionally seen older systems that don't like the new solid state drives and they act erratically. Fortune smiled upon us again as I obtained another Windows 7 system, cleaned it up and delivered it.
Now, my friend is no dummy. Yet, both the Linux and Windows 7 systems threw him. He knew how do all the basic stuff like opening programs and copy/pasting files but he was unfamiliar with the different looking (and occasionally acting) interfaces. I had to guide him through things I thought he should know and he said, "A wise man told me that if you want to really mess someone up, move everything around him one inch."
I thought a lot about that on my way home and realized that my knowledge/experience with computer systems was greater than I thought - probably greater than most people. In my time I've hacked away at the following systems/operating systems:
Commodore 64
MS DOS
MS Windows 3.1/3.11
Windows 95/98
Windows XP
Windows 7
I've done a little bit with Windows 10 but I hate it. But there's more:
Debian Linux
Ubuntu Linux
Xubuntu Linux
Ubuntu Studio
Linux Mint
Puppy Linux
Mac OS X
and recently I've dipped my toe into Haiku OS which is based on the old BeOS.
Because I've puttered around with all these operating systems, I can usually work my way around them all. Sometime not very well at first... like a screwed up setting up some Windows shortcuts and accidentally created 700 shortcuts, but I figured out how to fix that pretty quickly. There's enough common to all the systems that I can do that but I've also had the experience (and time) to fuss with them until I had some idea what to do.
And no, I can't code to save my life. But put me behind almost any computer desktop system and I can work with in. I may use Google a lot for some things but I can do it. So I shouldn't blame my friend who's work with XP and only XP for over a decade for not picking up things quickly. Just moving from XP to Windows 7 I haven't moved everything an inch on him... but a foot.
Oh, for all my work and computers given to him, I've only asked for lunch, dinner and multiple cups of coffee.
-m
Recently, he asked for help with his home system - and even *older* Windows XP system. I was able to cobble together a Linux Mint system for him. Although he was completely unfamiliar with Linux I was able to get him up in running in Mint. Linux Mint looks and acts very similar to Windows so I thought he'd be okay. It was a lot faster with more memory, more cores in the microprocessor and a solid state hard drive (ssd).
However, the system started to have intermittent problems booting up. I've occasionally seen older systems that don't like the new solid state drives and they act erratically. Fortune smiled upon us again as I obtained another Windows 7 system, cleaned it up and delivered it.
Now, my friend is no dummy. Yet, both the Linux and Windows 7 systems threw him. He knew how do all the basic stuff like opening programs and copy/pasting files but he was unfamiliar with the different looking (and occasionally acting) interfaces. I had to guide him through things I thought he should know and he said, "A wise man told me that if you want to really mess someone up, move everything around him one inch."
I thought a lot about that on my way home and realized that my knowledge/experience with computer systems was greater than I thought - probably greater than most people. In my time I've hacked away at the following systems/operating systems:
Commodore 64
MS DOS
MS Windows 3.1/3.11
Windows 95/98
Windows XP
Windows 7
I've done a little bit with Windows 10 but I hate it. But there's more:
Debian Linux
Ubuntu Linux
Xubuntu Linux
Ubuntu Studio
Linux Mint
Puppy Linux
Mac OS X
and recently I've dipped my toe into Haiku OS which is based on the old BeOS.
Because I've puttered around with all these operating systems, I can usually work my way around them all. Sometime not very well at first... like a screwed up setting up some Windows shortcuts and accidentally created 700 shortcuts, but I figured out how to fix that pretty quickly. There's enough common to all the systems that I can do that but I've also had the experience (and time) to fuss with them until I had some idea what to do.
And no, I can't code to save my life. But put me behind almost any computer desktop system and I can work with in. I may use Google a lot for some things but I can do it. So I shouldn't blame my friend who's work with XP and only XP for over a decade for not picking up things quickly. Just moving from XP to Windows 7 I haven't moved everything an inch on him... but a foot.
Oh, for all my work and computers given to him, I've only asked for lunch, dinner and multiple cups of coffee.
-m