Comment Re:Windows for Linux users, advice (Score 2) 503
Some minor notes here...
1. Windows 7 on a new laptop.
IMO a new laptop is not essential; BUT it must be 'Windows Logo' for Vista or later otherwise Windows 7 will use a rubbish unaccelerated frame buffer video driver.
Also I would make sure you use the 64bit version of Windows; it's a slightly more hostile environment for malware.
3. Create a regular user account
...
This is good idea; but treat it as a 'best practice', give him both passwords. After all we have here a 12 year old with some skill at Linux. He has physical access to the machine so he already has higher access than Windows Administrator. If all else fails he can take a screwdriver and move the hard disk to another machine.
5 Backup the machine
...
Lots of tools for this: One I like is http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/index.htm it has a linux restore option so you only have to do a PXE Linux boot and restore the image from the network. In addition it does Differential Disk Image backups; something that most Image backup makers claim is impossible. All this using VSS from the running Windows installation and you can initially store the backup files on the same disk you're backing up. (But don't forget to clone the boot partition too).
But if I'm only doing a one off backup (day Zero) I'll use the Linux tool "ntfsclone" (from ntfsprogs). For Windows 7 you need to copy both partitions and dd(1) the first megabyte of the hard disk to a file.
BACKUPS. I really cannot say this often enough, You will have to restore the machine at some point and you will have to roll back the windows install to day zero. This is not like Linux where you can reasonably upgrade the filesystem through 15 years of changes and still have a fast and clean system. There is no package manager. Windows programs depend on install and uninstall scripts and they are very rarely complete or consistent. They break things, they leave debris behind, and game installers tend to be the worst of the bunch. They not only have "mistakes" in them they have intentional "anti piracy measures" and "DRM" which can never leave the system because that would let you reinstall the game for another 20 day teaser session.
Even that "drive snapshot" program leaves a single registry key behind, insignificant on it's own, but some applications leave hundreds and this machine will have lots of installs and reinstalls. Remember the Microsoft 3 R's