the stuffed machine is now back up and running Win10. Thanks to all who helped me sort it out.
As an aside, the owner is quite hostile to the notion that LibreOffice might be used instead of Excel !!!. When the machine was new he needed access to a spreadsheet and the information in it from his previous machine. AT the time that machine was US, the hard disk had ground to a halt after 13 years of whirring around. I took the drive out of the machine and we warmed it in an oven, just enough to soften the congealed oil in the bearings but not enough to cook the unit and then I popped it into my disc caddy and sucked the necessary data from it before it cooled down. I then showed him the spreadsheet opened up in LibreOffice but he still insisted on spending hard earned on a new copy of MS Office, bought on line and installed without backup/recovery. Lost it all.
Just to assist like, I have installed LibreOffice for him, just got to persuade him to try it........