Written in March 2025
Updated in November 2025
If you only do office work and go on the internet, even on so named social networks, a computer which is a few years old is perfectly adequate.
But Microsoft has decided to charge for Windows 11...
How? By making it incompatible with older computers to force you to upgrade.
And most of the time, when you change of computer, Windows is pre-installed, and Microsoft receives a royalty, which you indirectly pay.
Conclusion: Don't change your computer, switch to Mint or Ubuntu, which are based on Linux.
They update your version of Windows, even if you don't ask, to force you to upgrade.
Since early January, I've been getting a blue screen regularly and with increasing frequency on an older version of Windows.
Each time, I reinstalled Windows (without data loss) using either my installation CD or a USB drive containing the same CD.
And in February, when I tried installing from the USB drive, Windows told me it couldn't find one installation file on it. This is very unlikely, as I wasn't using the USB drive for anything else.
I tried with the CD: same problem, file not found on the CD. This is impossible.
I can only conclude that Microsoft released an update (although it was disabled for several years) to corrupt my version and force me to upgrade to 10 or 11.
It's unbearable, and I've therefore decided to stop working with those ba...ds, as...s, etc.
Ubuntu and Linux Mint are operating systems like Windows or macOS.
They are based on Linux and completely free.
For those who use a web browser and office applications, it's very easy and works very well.
Games played through the browser work normally, but it seems that some games installed as applications are incompatible with Ubuntu.
I find it preferable to use a separate drive for Ubuntu, so you can access your Windows drive, and hard drives are reasonably priced.
Your Windows drive probably contains your emails, internet bookmarks, and many files, photos, etc, that you want to keep.
So here's a short guide to installing Ubuntu.
For questions, write to me at Francis Misselyn, but I'm not an Ubuntu specialist.
Les Restos du Coeur (French social NGO) have decided to switch to Linux Mint as much as possible, so as not to disrupt their users too much, as the vast majority of them are retired persons.
Mint is based on Ubuntu, but the basic interface looks like the one of Windows.
I will write an article on installing Mint later on.
Menu at the top
Old version menu