I agree, but I think that's an apples to oranges comparison to tablets or other mobile devices. First you're comparing very aged PC's with brand new mobile hardware. Second you have a reduced functional capacity of mobile devices that is secondarily protective to the problems you mentioned. However I'd argue that:
If it's hardware-limited, get a better HDD or and SSD, if it's due to too much crap installed, delete it or go through msconfig
Standard account + UAC stops that crap quickly
See above.
Automatically install at night and reboot
MSE is free and probably better
So was their PC when they first got it. I understand what you're saying, but I'm not sure running a misconfigured system system, or a system configured beyond the capabilities of the user, is a reason to extol a tablet/phone over a PC.
Just for fun: I'm definitely not talking about only old PC's. Most laptops I work on these days are Sandybridge based, and desktops have been good enough for a long time now. Give someone a few months worth of abuse on a new PC and it'll be gimped beyond belief by the time it's too bad for them to use. It's not surprising to me anymore to see a higher specced machine than my own be barely usable. When it is a few years out of date, all those issues are exacerbated (especially older laptops).
Telling a customer they need a faster hard drive doesn't compute for them. Convincing them to pay a premium for it, plus installation costs is an even harder sell.
Of course add-ons, toolbars, and junkware are removed when I'm working on it, but once they get it home the process typically starts all over again. It's not like I'm doing a training course with their entire family while walking through the issues that were resolved and how to avoid them.
Standard accounts are a nightmare in XP for even experienced users. Windows 7 works much better, but not
that much because they don't pay attention to the messages and just click yes all the time. The times I've configured an admin privileged password to put in for a Windows 7 standard account I've had people wanting to bite my head off for screwing up their system because they claim they can't do anything anymore.
Yeah, setting updates to automatic is a standard practice of mine, but it doesn't help them until they get it worked on. Or, only helps until they or someone else changes it down the road for some inexplicable reason.
MSE is great and I always put it on PC's I work on explaining to them that it's free forever. Seems like a lot of people though still add a second AV at some point down the road either accidentally or in thinking they need a "premium" one, which means I get to uninstall one of them later when things go haywire.
My point is that people treat PC's like appliances and that doesn't work out very well for them. Both old and new hardware don't stand a chance against people like that. Tablets and phones work much better with the appliance minded person.
last edit - I'm not griping about it. If it weren't for these people I'd be out of a job.
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