Virtualization. For your girlfriend

Question

Or boyfriend. It's all good.

Here's a brief description of the issue at hand:

1. Said girlfriend knows how to download torrents (of Linux ISOs) (...) despite multiple warnings from Boyfriend regarding random fun things like spamalware
2. Girlfriend disregards advice
3. "OMG what are these naked ladies doing on my computer"
4. Boyfriend chastises Girlfriend for ignoring excellent advice
5. Boyfriend spends time running combofix/formatting when he could be doing other things (learning to play the harmonica).
6. Wait three months; go back to 1.

Boyfriend (me) has a revelation! Why not install Linux and virtualize Windows?! Then take some snapshots periodically, thus saving precious time for harmonica. But is this method friendly enough for Girlfriend? Should she be reprimanded for her destructive ways? Can this be achieved without such drastic and sweeping computing habit changes? Your advice for this situation would be rather appreciated, my fellow superusers.. My harmonica thanks you.

Update (6/13/2011) - After much debate, I finally gave in. I bought her a Mac. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: HARMONICA EXPERT

Answer 1

Windows Steady State! That is the answer to all of your girlfriend computer problems...

Steady State can only be downloaded from Microsoft until December 31, 2010 so get it now! (Support continues after that until June 30, 2011, but you can continue to use the product long after that if you keep the .exe around. It is legal and says so on the download page.)

Whether you manage computers in a school computer lab or an Internet cafe, a library, or even in your home, Windows SteadyState helps make it easy for you to keep your computers running the way you want them to, no matter who uses them.

---

A paid alternative to SS once it is gone:

Wondershare Time Freeze

http://www.wondershare.com/pro/time-freeze.html

Answer 2

This is a people problem and will not be solved by technology.

Answer 3

After many many years of steps one through six, my revelation led to the following set of action items:

1. Buy used MacBook Pro for former girlfriend, now wife
2. watch said wife become mesmerized by pretty colors and cute dock icons
3. eventually teach wife how to use transmission
4. watch and smile/laugh internally as wife is unable to destroy operating system by downloading mislabeled torrents
5. allow heart to fill with pride as wife realizes said torrents were fake/malware and figures out on her own how to tell the difference between real and fake torrents
6. remove formerly lonely guitar from case and resume previously interrupted learning experience

FYI, in all seriousness, I tried the Linux thing about 5 years back. I spent more time finding programs for her and getting them to work or troubleshooting settings that magically got messed up than I ever did reformatting/installing Windows. However, eventually girlfriend pretty much stopped using her computer out of frustration, so I guess this method works pretty well too.

Answer 4

I would simply not give Girlfriend an administrator account on the system, and have a secondary administrator account that's password-protected. If Girlfriend get a virus/malware, log on as the admin account, grab any critical files from Girlfriend's documents, nuke Girlfriend's account, and then recreate it.

Technology can only help with this, not solve this, so it's up to making it Girlfriend's best interest in learning how to be safe online. This allows data to be saved and quick cleanup, but there's still some annoyance of him/her having to reconfigure their account settings. If they find having to reconfigure their account annoying, then you can play a nice tune on your harmonica to comfort them while they set it back up.

By the way, who names their child "Girlfriend"?

Answer 5

So I can't believe that no one answers your question... YES. Virtualizing windows can be an easy fix to the problem as you've stated -- especially if you share the computer with your girlfriend. I just put a link on the desktop labeled "Windows XP" and then my wife can use windows if I forget and leave the computer in linux.

Three things. I would recommend a computer with a couple of cores (if you have buying power), doesn't need to be server-beefy, but even a nice core i5, i7 will do. Second, I would absolutely follow the advice of the other responses within the virtualized Windows. I would install avg, malwarebytes, etc. You can even setup Windows steady-state and you'll be able to easily provide a virtualized second partition where the user accounts can be stored to save changes. Third, if you have a bunch of disk space you can easily setup a cron job to make leave one or two backup copies of the previous day's / week's changes to the virtualized install. Then you never need to remember to make a backup copy and don't get caught with your pants down -- without your girlfriend present.

Your intuition here is brilliant. Essentially a chroot jail for your girlfriend within a virtualized Windows. Ps. I find that taking away admin privileges can be incredibly annoying. Let her have them and just make sure to back up the virtualized copy on a regular basis.

Answer 6

1) Install AV software (Avast, AVG, etc)

2) Install Spybot and enable Immunize feature.

3) Install SpywareBlaster and enable protection.

4) Encourage the use of an alternative browser, such as Firefox or Chrome.

5) Run malwarebytes every once in a while to get rid of nasties.

6) Enforce the idea that malware that gets installed can potentially steal information from the computer, cause it to perform erratically, and otherwise cause you to waste a day cleaning up her mess.

Answer 7

@melee: this is another possible solution - combined with a standard account and this, you could really lock down/limit the internet browsing...

K9 Web Protection is a web filtering and blocking software that is extremely configurable. You could turn on/off all the settings that you did/not want;filtering, word block, site block, category block,Internet time feature, content-based browsing, and more... You can set what hours of the day you want the Internet on the computer to be blocked, and can customize each day of the week. All settings are accessed via the web browser, and are protected by a password, which you could give to someone else and not know yourself if you wanted to completely block access. It works cross-browsers; one configuration covers Internet Explorer, Firefox, and others all one the same machine.

Have used myself, with great results...highly recommend!

K9 Web Protection: http://www1.k9webprotection.com/

Did I mention that it is free?

Answer 8

Your girlfriend might disregard your advices because she doesn't consider the whole issue important enough. Not to mention that she knows you will fix it for her anyway. You could try doing something wrong (but not harmful) on purpose, something that is important to her. If she is clever, she will get the point, if she will give you double hell for that, maybe you should look for a switch.

When I say "do something wrong on purpose", I particularly think about this :-)

Answer 9

I wouldn't bother with the virtualization in this instance, i think a far more effective and less overhead would be to use something like acronis trueimage taking constant snapshots of the machine, then when it gets hosed you can quite easily reset it back to how it was. If you go the vmware route in this instance she will have to get her head around the whole 2 computers in 1 computer concept, and probably just end up not using the virtual machine because of performance or convienience. Plus you have effectively got two computers to update, maintain, protect from viruses etc.

Answer 10

1. Get computer configured, up-to-date, apps installed, but no person user data.
2. Make image of system.
3. Restore user data, preferably redirected to secondary drive/partition.

Upon system breakage, restore image, update things that won't automagically. You're done in half an hour or so instead of doing the wipe/reinstall dance.

Answer 11

I think your easiest solution is to either dump her (If she doesn't listen to your repeated warnings/pleadings then...) or just wipe the computer and put linux on there. It'd be tough for her to screw up and probably has all the apps she needs.

Otherwise most other options can be rather time consuming... However, something like opendns.com (filtering/would be a simple enough option, but only if the computer is mostly on your network.

Answer 12

You can also install Deep Freeze

Your gf will get to enjoy using windows,but she won't be able to destroy it

Answer 13

How about this, the next time your computer broke, try to fix it, but then say that you give up since this virus is so pervasive. Call up a computer technician (a friend that your girlfriend doesn't know about), and send the computer to him for a few days. Then tell her that the bill costs $$$$ and she might feel guilty about it and start to become considerate with using her computer, if she doesn't, then I believe you should http://xkcd.com/215/

Answer 14

I use VirtualBox to do this WITH MYSELF. The problem would be leaving the computer with the VirtualBox fullscreen instead of the actual host. Aside from that, for most intents and purposes, it will look like a real Windows machine. And yes, you can roll the system back to a prior point any time to you (many ways, a few of them are built in).

Answer 15

After reading through I believe girl friend in question spends maximum amount of time surfing and periodically download some malware. If she is not using computer for any productive work specific to windows, then why even install windows (or allow her to log on to windows)? If my assumption is right, that she spends most of her time surfing, then, install some Linux distribution and give her a user account.

Answer 16

Replace Windows with Ubuntu... I did that to my wife's computer years ago and she's still around :)