How do I avoid making a Windows setup lame and boring?

[Jcmg62]

I've bought my teenager a Surface Go, and I could use some suggestions on how to introduce her to Windows 10 in an exciting way.

When I told her I bought the machine, I was met with "Oh dad, that's cool I guess. My own laptop. Ok....."

As with most kids, she's an iPhone user (shocker, I know) and it's the only operating system she's familiar with.

For the record, she's not a spoilt brat. But Apple has done a tremendous job of brainwashing her entire generation into viewing a laptop as something for "work" and a phone as the go-to device for "play".

Mention "work" to any 13 year old and you'll see a familiar dull and glazed look in their eyes.

She literally has no idea about Windows 10, to the point where she asked why everything on the home screen looks like a "bunch of moving squares..."

I'm going to be sitting with her over the weekend and going through the unboxing. I've created a Microsoft account for her, so at least we have a starting point.

What I really want to avoid is making this a "boring productivity device"

I don't want her to identify with the device as this thing she's forced to interact with whenever she has to do homework or some other lame chore.

I really, really want her to start using this machine to its full potential. I want this to be her main entertainment AND productivity hub. I want this to be her go-to machine when she's at home.

I want her to embrace all the good that comes from interacting with Windows 10.

But I have no idea where to start. I have no idea how to make this interesting.

If I start the device setup process by going into settings and messing about with updates, privacy, system and device settings, etc this kid will zone out and probably walk away to play with her phone before I've even managed to find her a cool screensaver.

Where do I begin?

What fun, entertaining apps should we download right from the start?

How do I introduce her to the important parts of Windows 10 (system settings, inking, file explorer) in a way that doesn't make it feel like work?

How do I create an "unboxing event" that will excite her?

Any suggestions welcome

 

[Bobvfr]

A bottle of Rum

 

[wpcautobot]

Make a list ahead of time... What apps did she use /need? If they don't exist is there a great third party replacement in the Store? If not, then the web version is needed. Install myTube for sure because it's awesome. Netflix, Hulu, etc if she uses those. Edge has a great initial page that gives tips on using it go over some of those with her and be ready to show her how it will help her.. Like maybe the cool (and I feel overlooked ability to set aside tabs) so ask her 'fun' and productive pages can be instantly opened. In October, after the Windows update rolls out, very she'd like Your Phone app, but in not sure it'll work with iPhone then or not. Good luck

 

[Drael646464]

No need for her to be involved in all the setup process.

Netflix and spotify obviously. If you don't have a subscription for her, get both. Spotify is fun as heck for young people to use compared to iTunes, because it's a discovery process - you get exposed to new music. You don't just have a collection, you get new music.

And Netflix is clearly more fun to a) do on a bigger screen b) have your own screen to use it on rather than the communal TV.

YouTube obviously too, but you don't need an app for that. Of course iTunes is also on windows, so she'll probably want that. It's easier to manage your music collection on a PC than your phone, make playlists etc. Although syncing the devices is a collosal time sink because it converts and indexes everything, so best to set that running and leave it be, rather than start with that.

I'm not sure if she's into games, but the steam version of trine 2 is fairly fun and accessible and runs in a touch only mode. Maybe that's more of a taste thing. Better than mobile games anyway. The Sims 3 also runs touch only, and the latest civilisation games.
For something more casual (and cheaper), leo's fortune is fun. Also the "go" games.

For a surface go I'd want some pen based apps. I'm not sure what I'd recommend, but people instinctively enjoy the pen even if they are crap at drawing. So something well rated to show off the pen definately.

You know, young female earthlings might also like to use the pen for annotating social media pics? Like for Instagram or snapchat? Not sure about what apps there are for adding pen script to photos, but you might load on Instagram apps and all that jazz.

Girls like photo filter apps. Aviary's "photo editor", photo shop express are ones I use, but not sure how they stack up next to the iPhone ones. If you can find some things with nice filters, that might prove interesting.

There's a desktop version of WhatsApp if she uses that.

It's going to depend on her interests. There are powerful things you can do with windows, like write music, illustrate that you can't do well on mobile operating systems. The desktop browser is more powerful than the phone browser. Multiple tabs all that. But IDK if you can just throw people into all those things, and things like adobe illustrator and fruity loops aren't cheap, and those are things you sort of discover are nice about windows with time too.

But yeah, I'd offer to do all the boring setup bits for her. She doesn't want to sit through that. Open it, show her the device, let her have a look at it, and then say, I'll set it up and bring it back to you - then when she plays with it, it's all there ready to go. Also that gives her a chance to input what she wants on it.


And don't overload her with info on what can be done either. Hit everything enough to introduce it, and then leave her to enjoy the device.

When gifting such a thing, you don't want her to feel like you are enthusiastic and she's a bystander to it.

She'll like it. She'll probably live on it. It's hard to like something your not familiar with.

I'd also keep any "here's where you find stuff" tour brief. Just how to open the browser, where to find apps, how to close and switch should be fine to start. Kids are experimental, they'll find things on their own, or ask. Many people never enter settings, or change resolution etc.

 

[Jcmg62]

No need for her to be involved in all the setup process.

Netflix and spotify obviously. If you don't have a subscription for her, get both. Spotify is fun as heck for young people to use compared to iTunes, because it's a discovery process - you get exposed to new music. You don't just have a collection, you get new music.

And Netflix is clearly more fun to a) do on a bigger screen b) have your own screen to use it on rather than the communal TV.

YouTube obviously too, but you don't need an app for that. Of course iTunes is also on windows, so she'll probably want that. It's easier to manage your music collection on a PC than your phone, make playlists etc. Although syncing the devices is a collosal time sink because it converts and indexes everything, so best to set that running and leave it be, rather than start with that.

I'm not sure if she's into games, but the steam version of trine 2 is fairly fun and accessible and runs in a touch only mode. Maybe that's more of a taste thing. Better than mobile games anyway. The Sims 3 also runs touch only, and the latest civilisation games.
For something more casual (and cheaper), leo's fortune is fun. Also the "go" games.

For a surface go I'd want some pen based apps. I'm not sure what I'd recommend, but people instinctively enjoy the pen even if they are crap at drawing. So something well rated to show off the pen definately.

You know, young female earthlings might also like to use the pen for annotating social media pics? Like for Instagram or snapchat? Not sure about what apps there are for adding pen script to photos, but you might load on Instagram apps and all that jazz.

Girls like photo filter apps. Aviary's "photo editor", photo shop express are ones I use, but not sure how they stack up next to the iPhone ones. If you can find some things with nice filters, that might prove interesting.

There's a desktop version of WhatsApp if she uses that.

It's going to depend on her interests. There are powerful things you can do with windows, like write music, illustrate that you can't do well on mobile operating systems. The desktop browser is more powerful than the phone browser. Multiple tabs all that. But IDK if you can just throw people into all those things, and things like adobe illustrator and fruity loops aren't cheap, and those are things you sort of discover are nice about windows with time too.

But yeah, I'd offer to do all the boring setup bits for her. She doesn't want to sit through that. Open it, show her the device, let her have a look at it, and then say, I'll set it up and bring it back to you - then when she plays with it, it's all there ready to go. Also that gives her a chance to input what she wants on it.


And don't overload her with info on what can be done either. Hit everything enough to introduce it, and then leave her to enjoy the device.

When gifting such a thing, you don't want her to feel like you are enthusiastic and she's a bystander to it.

She'll like it. She'll probably live on it. It's hard to like something your not familiar with.

I'd also keep any "here's where you find stuff" tour brief. Just how to open the browser, where to find apps, how to close and switch should be fine to start. Kids are experimental, they'll find things on their own, or ask. Many people never enter settings, or change resolution etc.

Nice thanks man

 

[Drael646464]

Nice thanks man

How'd it go/how's it going?

 

[jnjroach]

I got my 14 year old into her Surface Go with the pen and art programs....then Netflix as it was more fun to watch it on the Go then her phone

Now she uses it for Homework as well

 

[Jcmg62]

How'd it go/how's it going?

Very well I let her do the unboxing and switching it on, entering her MS Account details, bluetoothing pen to the device, etc. It then cycled straight into needing to do a few updates, which took around 20 minutes, no big deal.

Beyond that, I avoided setting it up "my way" i.e diving straight into settings and changing everything. I pretty much just showed her how to change the screensaver, how to link to onedrive, installed office and left her with it.

She hit the store, downloaded Netflix, Spotify and Instagram, and that was it. She did ask me if she could run facetime on it...merp ...but she's going to use facebook messenger to video call her friends. Tried to intro her to skype...dude, Microsoft really need to get a grip on that app. It's a hot mess. She outrightly rejected it within 5 minutes of downloading it

Yeah, she's enjoying it. I think she'll get a lot out of it.

Although there are some apps that are missing (Sky Go in the UK is a big one, although it's available to download from the Sky website) she's really enjoying it

 

[Andrew G1]

I'm not a parent but I'd say just focus on the things that she needs in her life - social and otherwise. Other than Facetime (lol...) it shouldn't be a problem. Great to see good results for your kid! Basic desktop skills are kind of important for, you know, having a job ...

 

[Drael646464]

Nice. Good you let her just run with it, and that worked out. PCs can be a lot of fun, as can tablets. And everyone should know how to use windows.

Yeah skype isn't a well optimised app. Best noise reduction in the business (ie audio quality on calls), but the chat is slow, and interface still old fashioned.

I still use it because of the quality (FB messenger is terrible, but it is easy to use). I've tried using dozens of other apps, because of how buggy skype is, but everything else has ultimately had too many call quality issues, robot noises, echoes etc.

 

[Tyrone Bigguns]

If only there was a mobile version of it...oh wait there was that Nutella killed it!

 

[Vincent McLaughlin]

The only thing that would TRULY make Windows 10 cool for most people would be to have the apps that they want to use. That's it and that's all. Everything else, despite the good and bad of Windows, is secondary. It doesn't matter how cool it can look... Well, on second thought... There is one other thing. Windows needs to have a tablet mode that people will enjoy using and does not require a steep learning curve. Gestures need to be well thought out.

 

[Vincent McLaughlin]

I don't know about business use, but Google Duo works pretty good. I don't believe it allows for video chatting with multiple people, though.

 

[Hirox K]

I've bought my teenager a Surface Go, and I could use some suggestions on how to introduce her to Windows 10 in an exciting way......Any suggestions welcome

Teach her how to operate a PC professionally?

type "aple" then hit space, aple is highlighted. How do you fix it?
1. move your cursor from all the way across the screen, right click, move up, left click?
2. hit left, hit menu key, hit enter.
If you don't have a menu key, it's shift+F10.

tip1: A dialog with OK, Cancel and Comment text field. alt+o, alt+c and alt+t.
tip2: alf+f to access "File" menu.

I don't have a specific example in mind right now... but sometimes I need to compare 2 documents or I want to view 2 piece of infos.

MsWord for example.
ctrl+e to open FileExploere then alt+d to go to the address bar.
Let's say, my file is in d:\Documents\ABC\DEF\g.docx.
You can type 'd:\Doc" then hit tab then "\a" tab, "\d" tab, "\g" tab then enter.
then you can use win+left key to snap the window to the left, and then do the same thing and hit win+right to snap the window to the right.

tip3: you can use alt+tab to switch between windows.
Day1 on my job, I had to follow instructions (docs) to setup my PC and I have to copy&paste settings from several documents to other applications.
I did it with no mouse. And I was like 2 or 3 time faster than all other newbies.


With Edge...
ctrl+n, alt+d, type your address, hit enter, hit win+left/right.

We have ticket system.
Say, I'm currently on https://ticketsys?ticket=001.
Colleague shows up "hey, can you check ticket 043 for me?"
"Sure" and I don't want to navigate away so I can do alt+d, ctrl+c, ctrl+n, alt+d, ctrl+v, end key, ctrl+backspace, 043, enter.
And when I'm done, I hit ctrl+w.
* end key is not needed, I just want to show you End key is real.
* Most iOS app has only 1 view so normally, you'll be forced to leave whatever you are currently viewing.


I'm a lead game programmer in a major game studio (office I'm in has 7k employees and we have office in other countries) and I use VisualStudio and other tools... I can show you magics if you are standing right next to me.


Last... iOS... we had a wrong hire months ago. She's from multimedia but she knows and owns only iPhone. We treated her like a princess but still... you just can't say she's useful/helpful to the team. Didn't know where to find the installers, needed babysit, accidently removed repositories and resources, etc. God! But kids are innocent tho. I blame her parents and teachers. She applied IT and planner but IT was full so she got assigned to my team...
Frontdesk or canteen would suit her better tbh.


ps: I'm a lazy programmer. I like to hack, inject codes to work tools, to do my automations or help me avoid pointing devices. And I write my own tools too. I hate repeating tasks and operations that require lots of steps.

 

[Joe920]

Edit: oh, I think I misread the question!

Well anyway, here's my tip to Microsoft for making Win10 more cool to work with:

One simple thing: assign 4-finger and 5-finger gestures to 'move and resize window'.

Dragging window positions aiming one finger at the title bar is finicky. Placing your fingers on a window and sliding/spreading them would be super intuitive for window placements, and it would finally feel like you have real tactile control over windows. And it would be cool

Just my $0.02

 

[janusflipflop]

Both my girls, 7 and 10. have been brought up with 8inch tablets with Windows 10, plenty of games to play as they get to play only the free ones. Their phones are Windows phones as they are our old phones, same goes for the phones. Our current phones are 950xl's because of the complete integration work and family. Our kids don't know any different.
Yet if they want anything different like xbox or so they have to pay half themselves. So, if they talk about getting something like an IPhone, I smile and tell them the purchasing price…..and their share in it.
I am however eager for any new microsoft mobile device within the coming two years as my oldest will go to highschool and I want her to use (if it ever 'surfaces') that as her allround device.

 

[BanditoTR]

Buy an external fan

 

[Rowdy Bedsaul]

Onenote for taking notes at school is honestly the coolest thing about windows, lol. Sounds lame but it's true. Several of the youngsters I go to school with (I'm a vet going back to college) are so impressed and jealous by my taking notes in onenote. So far, 4 mac users have switched to windows to use it, one Mac user I know bought an iPad, and two guys who had windows machines without inking support bought machines that did.

 

[Steve78UK]

You can't make Windows or Windows devices interesting to kids/teenagers. They are primarily interested in their phones & social apps.

Nothing Microsoft offers compares to the experience an iPhone & a bunch of social apps offers a teenager. The Surface Go will just be a secondary device and in a few weeks it will just be gathering dust with occasional use.

It seems to me that you are trying to steer her onto Windows and that's just not going to work. You should have got her an iPad if you wanted to give her something she will actually use. You've wasted your money.

 

[Drael646464]

You can't make Windows or Windows devices interesting to kids/teenagers. They are primarily interested in their phones & social apps.

Nothing Microsoft offers compares to the experience an iPhone & a bunch of social apps offers a teenager. The Surface Go will just be a secondary device and in a few weeks it will just be gathering dust with occasional use.

It seems to me that you are trying to steer her onto Windows and that's just not going to work. You should have got her an iPad if you wanted to give her something she will actually use. You've wasted your money.

I think the OP's motivation was to give her a device that would prove useful, in terms of the ability to use it being useful in later life. If one had no exposure to windows, it could prove to be a major life disadvantage.

Not that she games, but it's worth noting the 70 odd billion per year global revenue PC and console gaming makes, with audiences largely under 25. To say 'teenagers have no interest in PCs' is obviously untrue. For example Call of Duty as a franchise made more money (17 billion) that ticket sales to all MCU movies (about 14-15 billion to date) and I bet a large portion of those people are teens. In fact, the majority of all 'sit down' gaming sit's with Microsoft's OSes, across both PC and xbox.

Nothing could be more wildly popular than say, fortnite, with teenagers right now. Fortnite, largely played by teenagers has around 250 million users, more than snapchats 190 million active users. Albiet eclipsed by instagrams 1 billion users, but a large portion of instagram users are adults.

Not to mention the screen size issue. People watch movies on smaller devices far less than bigger devices, even in the younger age groups. And I think that's going to be true of any activity that isn't generally casual and brief.

It's not really that computing has been replaced by smartphone use. Looking at market trends, it's more accurate to say that it has 'diversified'. People use the device appropriate to the task, and most homes have more devices than people.

But sure, a lot of kids snapchat, particularly girls. Still, I don't think your statement is true. You are either unaware of use trends, or being very hyperbolic.