Refurbished Desktop

[mc2fool]

I've had "system protection" turned on for yonks

You turned that on, it wasn't on by default?

I don't think so. I've had Windows 10 for a while, Home on my laptop as the upgrade from 8.1 (from 8 before that) and Pro on my desktop from purchase, in Dec 2017, and I'm fairly sure I had to turn it on, but I may be misremembering...

[mc2fool]

Open Shell Menu will replace the nasty phone-style start menu with a w7 one...

Dunno about "nasty phone-style" and certainly not sure the W7 start menu was better! In fact I'm sure it's not, IMHO!

I've had Classic Shell (the direct ancestor of Open Shell) on my laptop from Window 8 days, when there was no start menu at all, and have it configured to look like XP (which, IMHO was much better than the W7 style too).

However once I upgraded the W10 I found the start menu there to be a great improvement and dropped using Classic Shell (actually, it's still there if I shift-click the Start icon, but I can't remember the last time I used it).

What's great with the W10 start menu is it's really customisable, and with the ability to pin things to the tiled area and organise them in groups I have my 40 or 50 most commonly (and some less so) used applications and commands instantly visible and accessible on clicking the start icon. I certainly wouldn't want to go back to poring through long lists of and in folders and subfolders etc.....

[Breelander]

What's great with the W10 start menu is it's really customisable, and with the ability to pin things to the tiled area and organise them... I certainly wouldn't want to go back to poring through long lists of and in folders and subfolders etc.....

Couldn't agree more. It was a bit of a culture shock upgrading from W7 to W10 back in 2015, but after a couple of weeks I got used to it and started to customise Start to my liking.

[sg31]

The new box arrived Monday. It looks brand new and works like a dream. I've been busy this week so I've not had much time to get data transferred, so far I've been getting familiar with Windows 10 and trying to stop it following my every move. Cortana has been 'disabled' as best I can.

I've got the machine functioning so I can operate the things I need which is the main thing. The computer loads in seconds, it's responsive and so far I'm delighted with it.

Thank you all for your advice and assistance.