Presumably this was, and will continue to be, the reason after the somewhat alarmist articles in MSM prior to the 14th, on Friday 17th, I received an unexpected Window's update ?

There are various flavours of Linux. Mint and Ubuntu are very similar, but Ubuntu is more Windows-like. Power users and techie gurus say Mint is more powerful. As others have said, load a Linux onto a USB stick and try before you buy (all Linuxes are free) to determine which one you are most comfortable with. All Linuxes use GRUB as a boot manager, which means you don't have to delete Windows to use Linux - you can make your machine dual-boot.

In windows, download a handful of Linuxes and then use RUFUS.EXE to make a bootable USB stick.

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS will run on a machine with 4GB of memory. Ubuntu 24.04 LTS really needs 6 GB or more to run, or it's really slow. If you're reviving an old machine that resides in the attic, 22.04 is probably a better bet. There is a new release every two years, in April (so 22.04 came out in April 2022, and 24.04 came out in April 2024).

When I read posts like that I think thank god for Microsoft - I just want a system to turn on and it works - not a course in PC tech.

LINUX etc are fine for those who like to dabble but I'm happy sticking with W10 TBH

By going into the BIOS I’ve managed to enable the required security settings.

Unfortunately, having tried to download Win11, I’ve been totally unsuccessful. I think my PC’s power supply is failing - it keeps randomly shutting off without any warning

I think you need to be fair about this - Justapax was trying to explain how to obtain and install or test Linux (for free). I can tell you, with a great deal of experience in the matter, that to do this with almost any M$ OS is much more difficult (eg. time to install, need for separate drivers, licence[s] etc) and will result in a system nowhere near as complete as many Linux distributions that will typically include a fully-featured wordprocessor, spreadsheet etc along with email and browser at install time.

Once installed Linux is just as easy to turn on and use as a M$ OS and, in my view, is generally faster and more reliable on the same hardware. That you don't need to 'licence' anything, nor pay a tax to run your machine is an additional bonus.

FP.

Here's one bloke who is definitely not a Windows 11 supporter:


Whilst watching his clip I noticed that the RH sidebar (click bait area) was slowly filling with contributions from quite a few others 'influencers' who seem to be of a similar persuasion. All very interesting.

As mentioned earlier, I'll battle on with my four W10 machines - imperfect though they are. How so? My local area network worked perfectly with W7 and indeed W98 before that. Since I brought W10 machines into the fold, I can never confidently count on transferring a file across the network - sometimes it's OK - at other times the required computer is 'not there', or I do not have the "credentials" or similar damn thing to do what I want to do.

USB drives are "in" again at this address. Then there is the humbug which seems to have infected File Explorer. I suspect that AI has taken over parts of this formerly simple procedure. A couple of days ago, I had to do some .jpg files search and save to usb on an old XP machine. It all worked intuitively and painlessly. They were the good old days. Not everything that is new is better - or is 'progress'.

Interesting, I also use QGIS (on Linux ;) - but in preference to ArcGIS! As with a lot of things it's probably more about what one gets used to and is comfortable with rather than what's necessarily 'better', although I think it's good to try different things from time to time.

Clearly getting a long way from Discorde's initial post so I won't go on, but am hoping to find time to write a couple of posts that will be utilising QGIS to present some aviation-related information. 'Tis impressive what one can use such packages for...

FP.

I replaced the power supply on my PC this afternoon, which has cured the random !!!!down issues.

Windows 11 is now installed (took ages, tbh) and actually working very well. No complaints from me as yet.

O&O ShutUp10
 

For anyone running Windows 11 (or 10), I'd like to give a shoutout to to O&O ShutUp10. It comes out of Germany, and is free (as in beer), and helps you disable many of the privacy invasive things that Windows does, including Windows Recall. Nicely made, .exe file, doesn't need installing, just run and use. Prompts you to set up a restore instance, so it's reversible. I have nothing to do with the company.

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10