I spent some time in the morning, then more later on, trying to get my dad's antivirus software working. After entirely too long with tech support, their final suggestion was to uninstall and then reinstall. His copy came with the laptop, there was no CD, and despite the fact that he had a paid-up subscription, they didn't seem able to give him a way to download another copy. Arrrg!
We also got my mom a new computer--a bottom-of-the-line emachines box which seemed nevertheless quite capable.
Setting it up, though, I'm acutely aware of all the small things that could be done to screw it up, and all the ways you could click on just the wrong thing and end up in some confusing situation.
I don't quite understand how non-computer geeks survive these days. I know that my computers sometimes do weird things that require troubleshooting, but I'd always assumed that was just because I had some idiosyncratic Linux setup. My parents are on Windows, doing only very normal things that their software is supposedly designed to do, but still it all seems very fragile. And when stuff breaks their computers are hostage to the software companies who are the only ones that can really fix anything. Blech.
My dad showed me some of his pictures from his and Helen's trip to Mali. Wow, looked like an interesting place.