Anyway, with Christmas here, my family gave one of our older friends a laptop, and I'm helping set it up. Considering he's new to the computer age as it were, I was wondering what sort of protective steps I could take.

Some things I'm doing is creating a separate account that can install software as opposed to the default very-restricted account, installing firefox, VLC, etc. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Make sure he knows that the CD[DVD?] drive ain't no cupholder.

Does the elderly person have good eyesight?

Yeah, pretty good.

Probably it's obvious, but I would suggest only have very, very few icons on the desktop. Lots of icons can be overwhelming to people who don't often use computers.

If it's for your grandfather label internet explorer as "porn."

He'll know what to do.

Solid advice if I ever heard any.

Yeah, and I did unclutter the desktop. Compaq loads a ton of crap on there.

I set up a PC for my grandma last year. Cleared the desktop as others here have suggested, and I also enabled large icons.

Quick link on the desktop to get to file folder where all their word files will be stored. My grandpa always had a hell of a time finding em.

Yeah, I got my grandma to use My Documents, and showed her how to create sub-folders (she only needs one, though). If they'll be doing pictures and video and stuff, create (if they don't already exist) My Pictures, My Video, etc. within My Documents. This way if you ever have to format their system, or migrate them to a new one, you know you just have to backup My Documents, and maybe their favorites/web browser profile.

Thanks alot for the tips.