I've always updated my parents computers to the latest OS after I used it personally for about a month or so to get a feel for it, so currently Windows 7 Pro.

I never enable the RDP nor Remote Assistance on their machines.

Instead I make the trip across town to fix anything that needs to be fixed.

I use the default of MSE and enable their Automatic Updates.

I then download and install both Spybot Search & Destroy and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, both the free versions.

I used to use AVG Free until it got a bit bloated and was coming up with many false positives on the games my father plays.

My parents wont even let me touch their computers.

My mother even cried and bawled when I was trying to get Incoming! to run in Windows 8.1 (I ended up getting Incoming Forces to run but not Incoming because AMD screwed up something past their 13.1 drivers)

Thanks all! Keep 'em coming! 😀

My mum still runs xp. In no way a technical person.

On the day it came out of support she decided she wanted new virus software, having a lapsed norton install; my son gave her avg free.

The worst thing about her using it is her fiddling around. It's a p4 2.6, so for 1 person web browsing it should be fine. But she opens 10 or 20 browser windows and then complains how slow it is, often manages to reset her isp password [we still don't know how], creates billions of shortcuts, moves folders at random. She's 82 and with a pc is worse than a 5 year old. She rams the machine with her vaccuum cleaner. She even took the side off once and poked around "because she saw someone do it once".

So I'd prefer something rubberised and locked down. I don't see much prospect of 7 or 8, I don't think my sanity would survive the questioning. Support calls inevitably involve her ranting about "the screen" or "i can't open the icon" and it's never possible to get a word in edgeways or even be heard even though she's not actually deaf.

My mother never touched a computer in her life and my father once opened control panel on my windows 98 computer when i specifically told him only to press left and right to scroll trough Alan Ford comics 😀

My parents have a Lenovo ThinkPad W510. They are under instructions to not install anything. Their ISP causes more problems than the notebook. Currently they use Kaspersky or Norton: I cannot remember.

Since my mom discovered that she can watch her favorite TV series online, she's always using the family laptop. Just an early Core 2 Duo at 1.66GHz and 3GB RAM and Windows 7 Starter.
I have Chrome and Firefox installed, because my dad prefers using Firefox and Security Essentials is a good non-intrusive antivirus software. I also use Adblock Plus on both browsers, because people less familiar with PCs have a tendency to go nuts if they see too many popups or advertisments pop up! 🤣

My parents never liked computers. My father keeps saying they're a passing fad (then again, he's 84 and still going strong 😀 ); my mother always referred to computers as 'the devil's hellish spawn' even after she understood what they were for. At least I don't hear her complaints anymore after she passed away in late 2005 (I still miss her though, and visit her grave as often as I can 🙁 ). My aunts will not let me touch their laptops at all, and my uncle will only let me tinker with his mid-tower PC if something isn't working right 😐 .

I used to set up Windows boxes for my mom but I moved away over a decade ago and after I switched to mac I've set her up with a macbook as well. A lot less maintenance work for me and when I need to do something via remote control I have her start ichat/messenger and do everything via screen sharing 😉

Thanks guys. I was mainly interested in seeing if my usual way of doing things was severely outdated. Judging by replies... doesn't seem to be.

Yeah, I'd recommend a Mac or Linux or Android or something, but I think most people of this skill level I deal with are set in their ways and cannot change... 😀

My parents are defintely computer-capable, although they don't know much about security software besides AVG or how to diagnose and fix troublesome issues. My mom's laptop is slow and always seems to have some bizarre issue - recently I had to disable Windows Error Reporting because it was screwing with the trackpad and making any type of use basically impossible.

My dad's solution to everything is to re-install Windows.

My dad is relatively tech-savvy, so he's fine with his Windows 7 laptop. He still gets frustrated when it doesn't do exactly what he wants, but there's not much anybody can do about that.

My mom, on the other hand, is a complete technophobe. (I often joke that she should get a job as a software tester. She regularly breaks programs in ways which would never occur to us computer nerds.)

For a few years, I had her using an old laptop running Xubuntu. This worked well enough, but required a lot of upkeep on my part. (It also pissed off my dad because he didn't know how to work the OS.)

Recently, we got her a 13.3" Samsung Chromebook, and she seems to like it. It does everything her old Xubuntu setup did, except faster and with less chance of things spontaneously breaking. Chrome OS seems to be very snappy and well-designed, and it should be immune to malware, bitrot, and other problems of the past. It is also very simple, providing a web browser and not much else. This is good for my mom, as she never used to venture outside the browser anyway.

Bottom line: if you're looking for a cheap, worry-free computer for the less tech-savvy individual, a Chromebook might be a good choice.

Grandmother & mother are on Vista SP2 w/ MSE for security & Office 2007 for their work. Neither have had security issues with this setup. Mother uses Gmail through IE, grandmother uses an ISP-provided POP3 e-mail through Microsoft's Outlook Express-cum-Windows Mail-cum-Windows Live Mail desktop program.

Father doesn't really use computers & alas no (living) grandfather.

Amusingly my grandmother (ie the oldest of this motley group) had a lot of exposure to computers as they became standard through the Apple II & early DOS/Windows 3.1x days. So she's a lot better than you'd think. I'd also venture to say she has more patience than my mother. I can walk her through things over the phone that I can't with my mother. (On the flipside: she was VERY and I mean VERY reluctant to shed her beloved dial-up.)

Windows XP and Office 2003. My mom cannot stand Office 2007 - and neither can I.

Try office 2010 😉

Sorry for how long this is, but whatever I'll just post it.

I support PCs for several people in the family who live near me.
About half of them are on XP, and my argument has been that the EOL status isn't a big deal. IMO 99% of what matters is the actions of the user, not whether it's a current OS. In the rare chance that an application exploit affects someone, it would almost certainly be through the web browser, not because of what version of Windows they have. Besides, I still don't use Vista/7/8 myself, and I dread trying to administer those machines.
My struggle has been to get people to think more suspiciously about what they're installing. Some people have had a bad history of installing malware on their PCs, but I think it's getting better.
For kids, I set them up as a restricted user and then give their parents an administrator account. They can't break anything without their parents' help.

If I have to reinstall Windows on something, I give myself a hidden admin account. I use registry tweaks to make it hidden. This way I don't end up stuck when I'm asked to repair a PC, but I don't have the current login information.
I keep text files with (overly) verbose notes of each installation. Occasionally they're a helpful reminder of what I did on somebody's PC.

Disk Image
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To be safe, I'll normally make a disk image before doing a reinstall, just so I'm sure I can recover any files the user reports missing later. Sometimes I'll also make an image of the clean, working reinstall. But I have to say, I don't think I've ever restored one of those.
When doing disk images, there's some Microsoft utility that can be used to fill all the free space on the drive with zeros. I run that, then do the image. This way the free space in the image is compressible.

Backup software
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Mostly I don't get into this, but there's been a couple cases where I was worried about the importance of files somebody might lose. I set up an NTBackup schedule in one case, and in another I set up whatever that goofy autobackup system is on Windows 8. Duplicate drives are obviously needed for this to do much good.

MSE/etc
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I've been installing MSE for the last couple years, but now it only has about 1 year left of updates under XP and it's a bit of a hassle getting rid of the EOL nag popups which started appearing. I uninstalled MSE from one of the machines, and replaced it with the free version of MBAM. It doesn't have any automatic protection so I just suggested they run it occasionally. I'm not too worried, the users of that machine aren't too virus prone.
I'm also starting to suggest people use VirusTotal before installing anything they aren't sure of.
I use the "disable autorun completely" tweak in WinXP to reduce the risk of infections getting spread through flash drives.

WinVNC remote desktop
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The last 2 or 3 systems have had an installation of WinVNC. It is not listening for incoming connections. Instead, the only way for me to connect is if they connect to me using the "reverse connection" feature. I've made note of the exact instructions for this procedure, and I'll just tell them my IP address at that time.
Since they're connecting to me, it eliminates issues with their router/firewall settings and allows me to reach multiple PCs behind the same router. Also, since their end isn't listening for a connection, it closes the risk of them ever getting hacked into.

Speedfan can alert you to problems
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One machine is a low budget, late P4 LGA775 game machine for one of the kids. The video card is an issue - it performs well, but it runs hot. I did what I could with the fan controls (used Rivatuner I think), but it still runs hot. I configured Speedfan to keep me informed. It has some alert conditions configured - as the GPU temp rises above 75C I start getting emails (limited over time so I don't get spammed). If the temp crosses a higher threshold then the speaker starts beeping (and I get emailed about that also). They've been instructed to stop the game and let it cool for a while if they hear the alarm. I get the 75C+ emails pretty often, but the local alarm has only sounded once.
I think there's also an email alert for dead fans, or at least there should be.
These emails were meant to let me know when fans or dust need attention. There's been problems with that before when I find somebody's PC in a terrible state.
In the case of this PC though, it just plain has heat problems even though it's clean. At least I've been informed that the problem exists, anyway.

RMClock
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I used RMClock on an HP laptop after it needed a motherboard replaced. It permanently undervolts/underclocks the CPU to a range where the temps seem to stay decent. At this stage of it's life it just needs to be reliable, and it's fast enough at the reduced speed. I would have preferred changing the behavior of the fans and undervolting the NVidia chipset/GPU (where the real heat problem lies), but those things weren't possible. The CPU wasn't the real problem, but undervolting it helped indirectly.

My parents dont live where i live.. So i dont help or messing with there computers. They need to maintain there own computers.