Drew 1, you can put Mint on a flash drive and run it from that. Take it for a test drive. I also have a fully functional Win 10 on a flash drive the I can use.

A year and a half ago I bought a new Win 11 laptop to use for live streaming, as in cutting the cable. It was fast, built for gaming, with an upgrade in memory and solid state hard drive. I bought a fan to go under it and keep it cool. Last summer it got the Windows 11 Blue Screen of Death. Even from the start it wouldn't perform as expected. On a website that had various news and commentary podcasts it would freeze up during breaks and commercials, Besides maybe Norton, no other software was installed.

Two weeks ago I took that one to a computer repair shop. That is why I am not jumping to get a Windows 11 computer. To tell you the truth my favorite Windows was XP. If the Win 11 laptop is beyond repair, might go to a desktop and try Linux from a USB as Jack Diddley suggests.

The Windows 10 laptop did everything my wife wanted. That is why I'm putting time and money into it.

Windows 11 won't even run on 'non-compatible hardware'.

The OS requires quite a lot of space and resources for itself. Slideshow. Plus it's now getting AI Copilot. Whether you want it or not.
Win12 is rumored to be online-only.
Do_Not_Want.

I built my computer myself from parts and pieces ordered from various sources. It was built as a Wiin 10 pro platform. Then Win 11 Pro was released, and I upgraded. I have had zero problems. I did need to download a new BIOS too make it compatible for Win 11, but that was free and only took a short time.

Not so. There is a simple mod to Windows 11 that lets it run on old hardware. Just a couple clicks during the install. I installed it on my 2010 Dell Latitude. I really did not like it and went back to W10.

New problem,
 

I have a dual drive Dell, SSD for C:/ and a regular HD for D:/. The D shows 482 free of 931 GB. The SSD shows 1.5GB free of 102 GB. It's full. I store everything I can and remember to send to the D drive. I have no idea why a printout of System32 might be 6 feet long — there's that much stuff. And there seems to be a lot of files created on some day in '22 that I have no idea about. Like a file for Windows NT.

And like a 1000 files that look like this in something called "TableTextSurviceArray"

"AAJK"="次"
"AAJM"="資"
"AAJN"="恣"
"AAJV"="栥"
"AAJV"="秶"
"AAJV"="楶"
"AAJW"="姿"
"AAJX"="餈"
"AAJ;"="咨"
"AAJ,"="粢"

and that crap is everywhere.

What is the basic remedy?

Edit, somewhat solved removing back up files that should be on an external drive.

zeke, my knowledge seems less than yours, so I won't try to answer.

By Wednesday evening or Thursday morning hope to be installing Windows 10 on the hard drive of the laptop I'm working on. I know zakthor, Rusty Heap, Capt. Carrera, and GH95Carrerra. will be "told you so" if unsuccessful and don't have a working computer. .

Windows 11 streamer hasn't been touched for a week, as far as I know. Will probably check on it once the Windows 10 is working. This one might be one for Linux.

Not that I know but may be a MS update. On the Win 11 laptop the guy working on that computer said an update with a bug made a lot of computers go into BSOD and needed bitlocker code.

Maybe a Win 10 update causes your problem

Capt Carrera, I like to fix problems. So with various equipment, I am a borderline hoarder. Take out the good parts before hauling junk to the dump.

That is why I did not buy a new computer. Plus my wife is happy that she has one that she knows how to use.

I'd suggest not upgrading to Win11.

Windows 10 laptop is working well now. Got back from town Monday afternoon and Win 11 USB had arrived. That evening it was installed. along with Norton and Firefox.

The man checking out the Win 11 Streamer laptop told me that it seemed the motherboard was gone. Paid him for his time and brought it home.

After taxes and planting the garden is done thinking about a computer in mid or full tower size to get plenty of airflow and stay cool. Going to try Linux as won't need to do anything but recieve on wifi and transmit through hdmi cable to tv.

Considering Linux Mint for this Win 7 laptop I'm on now. Norton will offer no more support after end of May. HP offers a driver for the printer we use that works with Linux. Libre Office is an office spreadsheet, word processor, and database. Onshape is a 3D Cad which I'm into the online training. Hve Performance Trends engine analyzer. That and my auto code scanner software may not run in linux. May have to do partitioning. Tried years ago with the Win 7/ XP setup available from MS for several months and unable to get it to work.

Drew you can download Lili to your computer and use it to create a bootable USB and run Linux directly from that. Super easy. No need to install the linux unless you decide you like it.

https://www.linuxliveusb.com/


You can download ISO files of many linux distributions to try here.


https://distrowatch.com/