Agree. Apart from spouse and kids, the only others that get tech support from me are my parents (hey, they raised me and put me through school) and my in-laws (because I'm not an idiot).
> when I still helped out family I found often I would get blamed for things not working right.
I used to get this from family too but it's been a lot better in recent years. My advice: install the most recent version of their favorite OS and let them stick with it until the end of extended support (so 10 years or so). My people still have Windows 7, are perfectly fine with it and know what to click and what not to click.
Focusing on the technical side, yeah that’s not a bad approach. Mind you, my Dad’s PC just seems flakey that often… bloody Windoze. It died recently with an error message that meant basically, “you’re hosed, do a rescue install,” after which I pretty much had to reinstall and configure all the apps. Contemplating that, I decided there is probably an install of Linux in his not too distant future. 90% of what he uses should still work - and he is already using VirtualBox for an old business program that only works on XP, so there is precedent.
UltraVNC Single Click[1] makes a pretty good remote support solution too.
I’m seriously considering buying a chromebook, just so I can play with one and figure out how good it might be as a future replacement PC (I’m thinking mainly for my Mum — mind you, I set her up with Linux over five years ago, and it has run so smoothly ever since…)
All families are different, and if it was a big source of stress for you, then it sounds like you made the right call.
I don’t get blamed, but whenever my Dad has a problem there is a strong, unspoken pressure for me to drop everything and help him out. Have to work on managing expectations there just like with clients from my freelancing days.
