Farm PC 'maintained' by a 14-year-old dumped support chap in a steaming pile of tech mess
Human users can be hard to handle. A few hundred head of cattle and unsupported windows XP can really stink things up
In a recent episode of On Call, a reader named Jason recounted his experience helping an agricultural equipment dealer maintain a computer system on a Yorkshire farm. The system, which controlled various aspects of the farm's cattle management, had been upgraded with proprietary software on a single PC running Windows XP, which had been past its mainstream support period.
Upon arrival, Jason discovered that the farm had no backups, no spare PC, and no one on-site to maintain the computer. The farm's 14-year-old grandson had taken on the task of updating the system's security patches, but he had apparently deleted many racy videos from the PC. The farmer's wife discovered the deleted videos, leading to an unpleasant situation.
Despite the mess, Jason managed to install a firewall, make some other tweaks, and get the system working. However, he received a hefty bill for his efforts. The farmer never contacted Jason again, leaving it unclear if the system remained operational or if they were embarrassed to see him again or had found a cheaper alternative.
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