Hi -
I've been asked to help an extended family member thats starting high school in 2025 with a laptop. It needs to be Windows (despite what my own preferences are) so i'm looking for some info on what tools are available to aid in remote management. I've been looking at MDM (Mobile Device Management) however that seems a little bit overkill for what I want. I've also looked at ansible which at the moment is looking like a favoured approach. Thought it put the question out there and see what else might exist.
Some key things im looking for:
- Can enforce windows updates
- can manage local user account
- can limit installation of software
- can push new software
- potentially some policy/group policys - i havnt looked into this space much but i'd like to 'secure' the laptop while not restricting use.
- Must support windows,
- if also supports android mobile thats a bonus but not required
Why im doing this:
I dont have much experence in newer windows. I've barely touched windows 10/11 and only minimal exposure on 7. Back in the XP days i had reasonable experience in XP and 2000 and the accompanying windows server 2003 and 2008. I've seen first hand that windows laptops get clunky and generally slow down over time as more and more things are added, edited and changed.
My ultimate goal to to prevent curious fingers from changing important settings, adding unknown softeware, and protecting from threats (malware, virus etc)
My current line of thinking, is to go down the ansible route - setup the device initially then add zeroteir, so The device and the ansible controller can talk to each other on differnet physical networks.
Open to all suggestions, and to hear about what you may have down to support your own family devices.