What's the best reinstall?

Ghot: LOL. The problem is that I created text and spreadsheets and then. I don't remember where they are? It requires creating separate folders for all the different things we make text's for. And in the space of 10 years,would have a huge set of files to maintain.

PennsyNut said:

Ghot: LOL. The problem is that I created text and spreadsheets and then. I don't remember where they are? It requires creating separate folders for all the different things we make text's for. And in the space of 10 years,would have a huge set of files to maintain.

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For me the answer for many years has been Microsoft OneNote. Whenever I make a "how-to" note, I put it in OneNote. Over the years I have thousands of notes saved in OneNote. I can search OneNote and instantly find any note I've ever made. OneNote is one of my most used apps.

Ghot: Never heard of "one note". When you say "app", it think of a smartphone. I do not own a smartphone. If it's something for a PC, then please tell me how to get it. But I don't like downloading at all. The PC gets too overloaded with junk and I have a lot of trouble deleting unused junk.
When I purchased the new PC, it came loaded with so much junk, I spent weeks getting rid of what I could verify as junk. And it still has a ton of stuff that I honestly don't know if it's junk, spam or should be deleted.
I'm sure you know what I mean.

@PennsyNut Microsoft OneNote comes preinstalled with Windows 11. Simply click on START and start typing OneNote and there it is. Unless, in your zeal to delete "junk", you've deleted it.

If you've deleted OneNote, you can find it again in the Microsoft Store.

Merci Beaucoup, Monsieur. Muchas Gracias, Senior. And thank you Very much. It was so obvious, I would never have stumbled on it. LOL

@PennsyNut There are also tons of OneNote tutorials on YouTube. Once you see the structure of OneNote, using it is simple and straightforward.

PennsyNut said:

Absolutely. But you have to realize when it's a swamp!

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PennsyNut said:

First of all. I am a novice.

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What an incredible thread. Started out with a plead for simplicity, ended up as a web of confusion IMO.

It could of been simple..

- Buy a USB stick of at least 8 Gigabytes
- Download Media Creation Tool
- Run Media Creation Tool
- Follow the prompts.
/the end.

The next question is: Do I perform a complete reinstall or do I do an in place upgrade?

This is also a simple question.

It is simple. When you know the right questions. But you: antspants: apparently don't know what happens when someone reaches 85 and starts to lose all those smarts that you have.
I've done that. Downloaded 5 different "media creation tools". So, since you are so smart and can read my mind - which one do I use?
I can figure out that if I want to use it on Windows 10, the file is marked for 10. And if I want to use it on Windows 11, that also is marked. But since there's 3 different ones on W11. And on is an ISO, and the other two are .exe. How do I know which to use?
And what's the difference between a reinstall and a upgrade? I know, look it up in a dictionary. I'm beginning to wonder if antspants is a smart ass!
I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I'm just an old fogey that is totally out of his element.
Furthermore, I'm not ready to use those "MCT's" yet. All I want is to have them in case I need them. And when I need them, the PC won't be here to help.
i.e. If my PC goes kaput. And I have no way to get back on. The flash drive can be inserted and that will be all I need. Just follow the prompts. RIGHT? But when or if that happens, how do I know which to use? Pick one and see what happens?
So for this thread, it can be closed. Since all the nice people have done what they did for me. And antspants summarized the whole kit and kaboodle.
I'm gone. And won't respond to any more messages.
Total thanks to: hdmi, TraderGary, glasskuter, bobkn, pparks1, MitchAtHome, WAI, idgat, Ghot, Scott & Stigg. Y'all had the patience of Job for me.

PennsyNut said:

It is simple. When you know the right questions. But you: antspants: apparently don't know what happens when someone reaches 85 and starts to lose all those smarts that you have.
I've done that. Downloaded 5 different "media creation tools". So, since you are so smart and can read my mind - which one do I use?
I can figure out that if I want to use it on Windows 10, the file is marked for 10. And if I want to use it on Windows 11, that also is marked. But since there's 3 different ones on W11. And on is an ISO, and the other two are .exe. How do I know which to use?
And what's the difference between a reinstall and a upgrade? I know, look it up in a dictionary. I'm beginning to wonder if antspants is a smart ass!
I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I'm just an old fogey that is totally out of his element.
Furthermore, I'm not ready to use those "MCT's" yet. All I want is to have them in case I need them. And when I need them, the PC won't be here to help.
i.e. If my PC goes kaput. And I have no way to get back on. The flash drive can be inserted and that will be all I need. Just follow the prompts. RIGHT? But when or if that happens, how do I know which to use? Pick one and see what happens?
So for this thread, it can be closed. Since all the nice people have done what they did for me. And antspants summarized the whole kit and kaboodle.
I'm gone. And won't respond to any more messages.
Total thanks to: hdmi, TraderGary, glasskuter, bobkn, pparks1, MitchAtHome, WAI, idgat, Ghot, Scott & Stigg. Y'all had the patience of Job for me.

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Calm down, I was referring to the replies you received, not your questions. But as long as you’re happy, no harm done. But having said that, you don’t know me, or the fact that I’ve had upteen heart attacks that have affected my comprehension and memory. Have a nice day.

I know this is a completely alien and absurd idea since users are on a help forum but...

Sometimes it is necessary to use a local provider, I am a local provider, and 95% of my clients are aged 65-95 and just want to use the computers without having to deal with it themselves. I do not mean Geek Squad or any of the chain companies.

Porthos said:

I know this is a completely alien and absurd idea since users are on a help forum but...

Sometimes it is necessary to use a local provider, I am a local provider, and 95% of my clients are aged 65-95 and just want to use the computers without having to deal with it themselves. I do not mean Geek Squad or any of the chain companies.

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Good idea.

There'd be the usual issue, though: who to trust? Both for technical and cost reasons.

Porthos said:

I know this is a completely alien and absurd idea since users are on a help forum but...

Sometimes it is necessary to use a local provider, I am a local provider, and 95% of my clients are aged 65-95 and just want to use the computers without having to deal with it themselves. I do not mean Geek Squad or any of the chain companies.

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I can’t recall who it was, but someone suggested this morning that a type of team viewer adaptation to a website like this would be a great advantage for reasons you mention. I would agree, it’s a great idea. But I also think it would become quite hectic.

antspants: I know I said I would not come back. But your response told me I was wrong to jump to conclusions. I sincerely apologize to you, antspants.
Now, I need to be sure I have what I "might need in the future".
The first, which is not W11, but W10. Say's it's W 10 MCT for 22H2. I'm not sure what that means.
The second, which is W10 to W11. Sounds like it's the one to use to install W11 on a PC that has W10 now. If so, is it better than the one that MS keeps telling us to use on our W10 PC?
The third, which is W11, simply says W11 MCT. And I'm thinking that's the one I need to keep for the future should my W11 PC ever go completely bad.
The fourth states: W11 22H2 and is ISO. I think this is a duplicate of the third, but iso instead of exe. And either would work.
However, I see that the iso is a lot larger than the exe. Does that matter to me? And if the exe will work, I figure the iso is redundant and I can save it or not.
Now, if this isn't clear, just let me know.
It might be a good idea for me to keep the/second = W10 to W11 exe for if and when I need to install W11 on my laptop, which is currently W10 and has been designated eligible for W11 by MS. i.e. They keep reminding me about that.
And again, I do thank y'all. And just consider that at my age, I do crazy things. Like get upset over "a little thing that I should not have been upset over".

PennsyNut said:

Say's it's W 10 MCT for 22H2. I'm not sure what that means.

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22H2 is the version of Windows. In this case that would be Windows 10 version 22H2. You don't necessarily have to read the whole article, but Windows 10 versions are explained here:
Similarly, Windows 11 versions are explained here:
To find out which version of Windows 10/11 you have installed on your PC, you can press Win+R and type winver (and then press the Enter key).

PennsyNut said:

The second, which is W10 to W11. Sounds like it's the one to use to install W11 on a PC that has W10 now. If so, is it better than the one that MS keeps telling us to use on our W10 PC?

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The recommended (by Microsoft) way to upgrade Windows 10 to Windows 11 is to use the Installation Assistant, which can be downloaded from here:

PennsyNut said:

The third, which is W11, simply says W11 MCT. And I'm thinking that's the one I need to keep for the future should my W11 PC ever go completely bad.

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If your PC goes completely bad, you won't be able to run the .exe file on it, as you can only run it on a working Windows PC. Its purpose is explained in the previous link I gave, "If you want to perform a reinstall or clean install of Windows 11 on a new or used PC, use this option to download the media creation tool to make a bootable USB or DVD."

PennsyNut said:

The fourth states: W11 22H2 and is ISO. I think this is a duplicate of the third, but iso instead of exe. And either would work.

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If your PC goes completely bad, you won't be able to use the .iso file on it excepting only if you have copied the file to a USB flash drive after you have installed Ventoy on the USB flash drive.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_start.html
https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html
This is what I personally recommend to use, as you have to install Ventoy on the USB flash drive only one time so, after that, all you need to do is just copy the .iso file in question to the USB flash drive. So, you only have to be sure to choose the correct .iso file, like, grab the new one each time when Windows Update installs an update that changes the Windows version to a newer version and that's it, MCT is no longer required for anything. Now you know what I meant when I earlier said I prefer to keep things as simple as possible. Not simpler.

PennsyNut said:

However, I see that the iso is a lot larger than the exe. Does that matter to me? And if the exe will work, I figure the iso is redundant and I can save it or not.

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The .exe is the MCT that can only be used to download (over the internet) the .iso from Microsoft, with the option to use that .iso to make a bootable USB flash drive or DVD from it. Quite a few people on here use a free tool called Rufus to turn the .iso into a bootable USB flash drive, but Ventoy is based on Rufus, and, like I said, with Ventoy you only need to copy the .iso onto the USB flash drive after Ventoy has been installed on the USB flash drive. The main benefit IMO is that copying the .iso onto the USB flash drive does not cause the whole USB flash drive to be erased. I own two identical USB flash drives. Their storage capacity is 256GB. For reasons that should be obvious, requiring to completely erase them each time after Microsoft publishes a newer .iso would be quite the opposite to keeping this sort of thing as simple as possible.