You need to do a couple things to make sure you don't get screwed.
Like listed above come up with a monthly schedule of doing stuff. And the expectations from them and you about what hours you are available, and what they will cost.
Make them very aware, that you are not on call to come hold someones hand that just deleted their document they were working on. You are providing them an infrastructure service, not a helpdesk fix all their little issues service.
On top of that you will require them to provide you a laptop exactly like what they have. And you set it up exactly like you did theirs, so you can test whatever changes you are going to make to their machines, before you rdp in or show up to do the work.
And have a good backup and restore setup, with an image, so you can recreate your practice laptop, if things go bad.
Nothing sucks more than showing up, trying to install updates and have it go sideways, because something on that machine doesn't work well with windows patches.
Absolutely agree. Some general tips:
1. Screensharing: Use
Teamviewer for remote access (with user-side login prompt disabled so you can get in after-hours)
2. Computer master images: Do a proper setup on each laptop from the get-go:
a. Update the BIOS on each machine
b. Do a fresh install of Windows & activate it, then do updates, fresh drivers, the works
c. Install the base software
d. Create an image clone (I like
Macrium Reflect)
That way, if the laptop ever dies (virus nukes the HDD, or the boot drive decides to croak), you can restore your image from USB in under 20 minutes very easily.
3. Business information: Create spreadsheet in Google Docs with all of their information:
a. Computer makes, models, options (ex. Belarc Advisor will tell you all - save those HTML files in MHT format per machine & store them in a folder on your Google Drive)
b. User names, telephone numbers, email addresses so you can contact them
4. Backup: Set them up with a no-hassle backup. I highly recommend
Backblaze. It's $50 a year per computer with unlimited backup (less than five bucks a month per laptop); once you set it up, that's pretty much it! That's $400 a year for 8 laptops with automatic backup. If the laptop dies, you can clone the master image over, then download their files back from online storage (or get a hard drive or USB stick overnighted for a fee, if they have a ton of data).
5. Managing customer expectations: Exactly what Cuular said. You can get screwed VERY easily by not being explicit about what your job is. You need to manage their expectations. If a Java prompt pops up, can they call you? What about if it's 8 at night? Can they email you for free endlessly? I made this mistake when I first got into freelance web design - the pay was awesome, but because I wasn't explicit about what I would & wouldn't do, I got pretty abused. Don't fall into that trap!
6. Spare equipment: Have them purchase a spare hard drive and a spare laptop. The hard drive for if the laptop's boot drive dies - you can change it out with less than a day's downtime. The laptop is optional, but you can get a very nice 15" Toshiba for $249 at Best Buy to use in a pinch - it's a small price to pay for getting someone back up & running in a jiffy if they break their whole computer. It happens. A spare laptop is cheap insurance.
I'm sure there's other stuff, but that's just off the top of my head. Basically set yourself up for a no-fail situation, both hardware/software-wise & expectation-wise. That way you can be nimble in terms of responding to maintenance & to major issues.