Cop Car's Beat

Choosing onscreen buttons to click - (Pet Peeve #19)

Original Posting of 2/27/2022

In the photo, below, there are a lot of gages, dials, switches, and buttons, but there probably isn't one of them that I couldn't figure out with a moment to ponder. (I'll grant you that past experience and training make this so and if my pondering isn't productive, I have a friend on whom to call - eh, Stu?) They are unambiguous to me - I know which switch I need to flip/push/turn and what will happen when I flip/push/turn it.

Compare the above display to the onscreen display, below. The display, below, is clean, uncluttered, and has few toggle buttons* on which I might click. I've seen similar displays hundreds of times, as I'm confident have most of you. So why can I not interpret the meaning? Why do I not know whether each item is in a "disabled" or "enabled" state?

This lack of comprehension on my part is undoubtedly an error in the wiring of my brain. My brain readily accepts the task of interpreting a toggle button that has both options listed and a means of indicating the button's current state, but faced with the above toggle buttons, I am flummoxed. I don't know whether the label indicates the current or desired state - until I've studied the heck out of it. (And, even then, I'm not sure.)

Confession: It took me decades to be able to visually determine the state of the electrical circuit controlled by a rocker or push-button switch on an appliance when the options were labeled as shown, below. What in the world do "O" and "|" mean? It's a mystery to me. Yes, sometimes I feel like a complete, gibbering idiot; but I'll wager that I'm far from alone.

How did this all come to mind? I was getting ready to write about having solved a household problem...which led me to thinking of "Hints from Heloise" that was a feature in our local newspapers for years and years - 'way back when. I searched on that title and was amazed (goodness knows why) to find a Hints from Heloise website - that promptly assaulted me with a demand that I allow it to use cookies. Hoo, boy - that set me off on Pet Peeve #19.

 

ADDITION of 3/25/2022 - Toggle Button

This (below) is how I wish to be led by the hand. (From an email from Apple - available here.

___________________________

* A nice explanation of the difference between a "toggle switch" and a "toggle button" is provided in The Full guide to UI [User Interface] design at Toggle switch design.

A toggle switch operates in changes in the system. Think dark/light modes on the iOS settings, or a privacy mode in a navigator. The toggle switch represents a decision that can affect all screens of the app or device – this means that switches deal in system states.

Find a grand variety of toggle switches on the Justinmind UI kits page!

In contrast, a toggle button refers to a change that only takes place on that screen. Think flight dates and search filters. Toggle buttons are meant for contextual states.

Kicking and Screaming

I'm being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the third decade of the millennium. In February, 2007, preparing to go on assignment to the FEMA Region VII Emergency Operation Center (Kansas City MO) for the American Red Cross, I stopped into the local Sprint store to buy a cell phone. Yes, I was ready to join the 21st Century. My trusty Compaq pocket PC had lost it's mind and, besides, HP (who bought out Compaq) had never seen fit to add phone capability to it. On a disaster, it had turned out in my previous (it was my first) assignment, a cell phone was darned nearly required. I bought a TREO.

The TREO had a lot to recommend it, to me, starting with the fact that its operating system (OS) was Windows. Many people don't care for Windows, and I've (over the years) had a lot of beef with it, but my familiarity with it and its ubiquitous presence on so many computers made it my choice of OS. Another factor was that I could pay for a service plan that was for phone service, only. I saw no need to get on the Internet, being quite satisfied with only synchronizing the phone with my desktop computer.

In 2009, in a fit of frugality, I dropped Sprint in favor of joining Hunky Husband on Verizon which he had been using for several years. I had to buy another phone, and opted for a TREO identical, physically, to the Sprint TREO (this was in the days before laws required that original service provider allow cell phone owners to jail break them for use at a different provider.) At that time, HH ditched his flip phone to buy a TREO like mine.

Over the years since 2009, HH has had at least three or four (or more) different models of cell phone, his most recent being an iPhone SE.

Verizon has told me for at least three years that they would be dropping service for 3G cellphones such as my TREO, but I held out. Finally, they set a deadline of 12/31/2022. Since HH is developing less and less capability of coping with his iPhone on his own, I broke down and bought a matching iPhone SE (with slightly more recent software), yesterday. Actually, HH bought it for me - he has wanted to do that for 10 years or so and my 84th birthday looms.

My hope and plan is to become proficient enough with the iPhone that I can actually be helpful to HH when he forgets how to do something on his - or, as happens not infrequently, when he can't figure out what happened and what he needs to do.

When I put my old TREO in with the other "dead soldiers", I was reminded that I should take a run to the Wichita e-Cycle yard.

One assumes that people recognize charging cords and batteries when they see them, so I'll skip right over them for comment.

The three identical phones are the TREOs: 1) mine from Verizon, Spring 2009; 2) mine from Sprint, Feb 2007; and 3) HH's TREO from Verizon, Spring 2009. In about 2013, I had dropped my Verizon phone (one more time) onto the concrete garage floor and it would no longer ring. I used HH's TREO from then until today, although I had to use my Sprint TREO for charging the battery because the power input plug to HH's TREO was broken. In addition, I scavenged the back closure from my Sprint TREO when I lost the back to one of the other TREOs.

You might recognize my HP camera that went belly up about a year or two ago, and which I replaced with a slightly newer, but used, version. The camera in the photo was purchased from Sam's Club in 2004. Next to it is the iPAQ H1910 PDA that I purchased in 1995. It served me well until after I retired in 2004. I loved being able to carry Excel, Word, and Power Point files with me.

About that iOmega ZIP 250 drive that's for steal

More photos of the iOmega ZIP 250 drive - P/N 04018D00 7/28/1999

In the photo, below, the port to the computer is on the left, port to printer, right. Included is one cable with male connector on one end, female on the other. [Although I don't see one in my "junk box", it's possible that I could dig up another such cable.]

Power adapter: 120 V 60 Hz to 5 V 1.0 Amp

Included: 5 each, blank 250MB Zip disks

Skinning Cats

Elder Brother was considered the brightest of us three siblings, regardless of the fact that he completed the least amount of formal education - a year of graduate school in Chemical Engineering. Thus, I am always confident in asking advice from him. It is bound to be great - right? Ah, yes. Sometimes we agree on the approach to solving a problem; there are times when we are far apart. A few days ago, during a phone call, EB gave me input that was somewhere in-between. 

Trying to get more junk out of our house, Hunky Husband had allowed me to relieve his den/workout rooms of 8-9 empty cardboard boxes. While I was at it, he threw in a couple of boxes full of junk. Among the junk was an external ZIP drive, about which I was ignorant. I had known he had, some years ago, used an external hard drive: I had not known that it was a ZIP drive, nor would I have known what that was. I'm still not clear on the concept, but it is obvious that the 3.5" floppy disks that the drive uses are slightly different from the standard 3.5" floppy disk (see photo, below.)

Problem? I intend to box up the drive and the unused floppies and take them to the electronic recycle people in Wichita. I wanted to destroy the floppies on which HH had backed up his hard drive. What's the easy way to destroy floppies? It's having been at least 10-15 years since last I destroyed floppies; I don't recall what I did at that time. I do recall that we shredded floppies with an industrial shredder on classified programs, then burned the bits of confetto. HH suggested that I remove the sliding metal closeout of each floppy and put the medium through our cross-cut shredder. Hmmm...I don't know. That leaves the metal disk at the center. I don't wish to put our residential shredder to that task. I'll go with the brute force method of getting at the medium.

First disk: Insert screwdriver through the central hole, pry up at each corner to separate the two plastic halves, and shred the medium.

 

 

 

Second Disk: Insert screwdriver through central hole, pry up, insert long needle-nose plier through the central hole, pull out medium and shred it.

Third Disk: Insert screwdriver through central hole, pry up at the two corners away from the sliding metal to break attachments, insert needle-nose plier into gap in the side, pull out medium and shred it.

I've one more disk to shred* but have yet to come up with another way of brute forcing the medium out of the case. (Perhaps use a hammer?) Mom always assured me that there were multiple ways of skinning cats. Unfortunately, she's not around to see me apply her adage.

The photo, below, shows what will be taken to the e-cycle people.

There was a price for all of the fun I had devising different ways of destroying stuff: my unattended spaghetti sauce made a mess in the kitchen.

___________________________________

*ADDITION of 1/24/2022 - OMG

One box among those HH gave me for disposal, the innocent looking box in the photo below, contained a surprise: more disks.

These disks are just regular 3.5" floppy disks, rather than ZIP disks. Fortunately, only four of them need to be shredded. Some were blank. Most were used by HH for benign information concerning his volunteer service with an NGO providing disaster response. [HH served on over 50 disasters, including the responses to several hurricanes, among them Hurricane Katrina and to even more tornados, among them EF-5 tornados in Greensburg KS (1.7 miles wide, wiping out 95% of the town of nearly 1600 people - 2007) and Joplin MO (ranked as deadliest tornado in US history at the time - 2011- with 158 direct deaths and 8 more related deaths). HH was supposed to have been the originating director at Greensburg KS but came down with a virus just a couple of hours before he was to leave home - not before he had dispatched me to Topeka KS to provide liaison in the State Emergency Operation Center - my first large disaster. HH did, indeed, work in Joplin directing the operation - just not as the originating director. When the original call came, he was tied up in Reading KS on a small disaster training a new director of operations. OTOH, I was sent to Kansas City MO to provide liaison with FEMA.]

But, wait...there's more! That thin, long, black "thing" is the battery to a laptop. At first, I assumed it was the "lost" spare battery to the Toshiba that I shipped off to Elder Brother a few months ago; but, no, it is to HH's HP Envy laptop. That made me give the box another look. It was the box in which HH's Envy had arrived - back in 2015. The battery is now appropriately bagged in its anti-static sleeve, labeled, and ensconced in a storage compartment above the said laptop.

Ah, yes, the good old days

Since nothing exciting is going on around here - still - I share a photo that I found online. (I don't recall what I was looking for or where I found the photo). It reminds me of the "Good Old Days" when everything, so many people claim, was perfect - except - we were engaged in World War II, we had no indoor plumbing, and I had already lost two siblings, one of whom could possibly have been saved with penicillin. A friend from our small town had been shot down in China, suffering a broken back in parachuting and unable to communicate with the Chinese peasants who came to his aid.

"What" I hear you ask, "...does Fred Emery [the parachutist] have to do with an early-day telephone switchboard?" Well...Fred's mother, Nettie Emery, was "our" switchboard operator. On rare occasion, if I behaved myself, Nettie allowed me to "help" her at the switchboard in her parlor. Ah, yes, the good old days!

ADDITION of 12/20/2021

1954 August or September - Missouri Air National Guard Summer Camp Communications Center - Casper, Wyoming

Equipment from back-to-front: Field Switchboard (hidden), Commercial Switchboard (staffed by Hunky Husband), and Teletype

It isn't apparent to me what the fourth airman, the only one with his airman's stripe showing, is doing. HH had written the date and place on the back of the photo, along with identifying the four airmen. I believe this to have been HH's first deployment for training in the Air National Guard as he would probably not yet have reached the age of 18 when the photo was taken, his birthday being in early September. (His parents would have had to sign a waiver for him to have joined at age 17.) HH no longer recalls much about most of his Air Guard service of 11 or 12 years.

Coda on Typewriters

Stu sent an email that included an image, below, and a link, each having to do with the Dvorak keyboard layout - a layout that did not even occur to me during composition of previous postings and comments concerning typewriters and keyboards. Thanks, Stu. I remember the Dvorak layout, but I don't recall ever having been faced with that layout on an actual typewriter. If I cared to do so, I could probably find conversion software for my current Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard; but, I am no more interested in making the switch, now, than was I in the 1950s. 👎 I'm happy using QWERTY.

For anyone interested in refreshing their memories, or adding to their knowledge base, I supply a full-keyboard image, below, and a link to another Wikipedia entry - this one in English.

More on typewriters

Royal Portable Typewriters for English Language Typing

Joared wrote in a comment to Roberta X made me do it of the keyboard layout of her Royal portable typewriter. I encouraged her to send me a photo of the machine and will post it if Joared has the time/energy/inclination to send one (or more). Until then, I am posting (below) a touch-typing guide that I found online, within an owner's manual. The manual is for a Royal Quiet Deluxe from 1952 which model did not include a separate key for "1" as does Joared's machine. (For those too young to know or to have used such a quaint machine, typists typed a lower case "l" in place of a "1" - which isn't too bad when using a font with serifs such as "l". I'm not sure whether Joared's machine includes that key because it is one year newer than the model addressed in the manual, or whether she bought a more expensive machine.

 

Typewriters for German Language Typing

Thanks to Stu for providing links to a couple of interesting German language typing websites. The photo, below, was found at Stu's link to his own website Eunoia, which posting has comments that include mine that predate some of the information in my own postings on typewriters.

Another view of a similar typewriter keyboard is found at Dreamtime (stock photos).

Note the QWERTZ layout as Stu wrote about in his comment. (I note a difference in the "upper case" ß since, in the photo (above) it seems to be a colon rather than a question mark.)

Here in Germany, we have a bigger alphabet,
the standard is QWERTZUIOP and the Y is bottom left.
U Umlaut is to the right of P
To the right of L we have O Umlaut then A Umlaut
SZ which looks like a Beta is below the question mark.

During the Nazi era there were also separate keys for the SS and for the swastika.

BTW: To access "cut copy and paste" German alphabet letters such as the eszett (ss), ß, I used the GYPU website.

IBM Executive Typewriters for English Language Typing

Other than the Smith Corona portable, about which I wrote in the previously linked posting, the only typewriter that I owned was purchased (used) from a shop in Albuquerque NM during the mid-1980s. It, an IBM Executive (photo of a machine similar to mine, above), made really gorgeous copy! The look of the finished page was enhanced by the proportionate spacing of the letters ("i" took one space while "W" took five spaces, as I recall), by the sans serif font (illustrated in the image, below), and by the machine's using a carbon ribbon (photo below the font image) rather than an inked ribbon. 

I really liked that machine; but, when I moved back to Kansas, knowing that it would be difficult to squeeze my household goods into Hunky Husband's already fully-furnished house, I gave the IBM Executive to Elder Brother and his wife who, at the time, lived in Santa Fe NM. He may/probably does still have it.

Roberta X made me do it

I mentioned in the next previous post, More of this and that - early October, that unlike my new computer keyboard which forces use of the left index finger to input a "6/^", I had been accustomed to using my right index finger for that key. I asked what was "standard" touch-typing for that key. In her comment, Roberta X (RX, henceforth), wrote that her '1942 U. S. Navy touch-typing chart shows finger choice for the "6" key (only!) as "optional" for left or right index finger.'

RX rightly reminds me that, over the many years since Elder Brother and I bought our portable typewriter (in 1951 or maybe 1952, I'm not really sure), the upper case numeral keys have changed. On the 1950s keyboard, the upper case "6" (I have to re-input each of the 6s because my fingers aren't paying attention!) was an underline, "_".

Although I was unable to find the graphic that RX referenced, I did succeed in finding two touch-typing charts (images, below) put out by Smith Corona, the company that made EB's and my portable typewriter. I'm pretty sure that a similar chart was included with the typewriter, explaining my habitual use of my right index finger for the "6" key (yes, I hit the 7 key, AGAIN!)

 

Below is an image of a manual portable typewriter quite similar to EB's and my typewriter - down to the case. [Alert: The rest of this paragraph should be viewed as "not necessarily so". Please see ADDITION at the end of the posting. CC] The only real difference I see is that the label on our typewriter was "SCM" followed by the company name in script. I don't recall whether the company name was Smith Corona or Smith Corona Monroe. I can find photos of "SCM" logos online, but I can find no mention of the company's having gone by Smith Corona Monroe, so I suspect the label included the former of the two.

Thanks, RX!

ADDITION of a few hours later: SCM

So much for my memory. It is like scrambled eggs. Perhaps I would have made more headway in my SCM "research" had I not remembered (incorrectly) that the "M" stood for Monroe - one of the Smith brothers. The "M" was for Marchant. I found History of Smith Corona Corp. which provides the following information about SCM.

Smith & Corona became known as Smith-Corona in 1946 and in 1953 was renamed Smith-Corona Inc. During the postwar years, the company worked to meet the challenge of the newest technology, the electric typewriter, which began to dominate the market in 1948. In 1955, Smith-Corona introduced an electric typewriter for the office. The result of a decade of research, the new machine featured a scientifically sloped keyboard fitted to natural finger movements, more controls in the keyboard area than any other electric typewriter, and automatic repeat actions on all keys. Continuing to branch out into other areas, Smith-Corona merged with Marchant Calculators in September 1958; the resulting company, Smith-Corona Marchant Inc. (SCM), became world renowned as an aggressive and diversified corporation.

....

....In 1985 Smith Corona was incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of SCM Corp., and the following year, the London-based conglomerate, Hanson PLC, acquired SMC Corp. ....

More of this and that - early October

Grass - not the smoking kind

Today was a nearly perfect day for me - something to write about. Nothing exciting happened, nothing out-of-the-ordinary happened; but...well...maybe it was a bit out-of-the-ordinary. Much of my day (5 ½ 6 hours of it) was spent pulling Bermuda grass out of our back lawn. (I wrote a tiny bit about this project at Big accomplishments this week.) We've been having such hot, sunny weather that I dared not spend too much time out there (besides my hands not being up to too much grasping and pulling) - until today. Today was mostly cloudy and cool. Tomorrow, I'll take an update photo and post it below this sentence. It is too dark, now, and I didn't think of taking a photo before.)

ADDITION of 10/7/2 021

The yellow ovals indicate areas not yet de-Bermuda-ed while the diamond shows an example of a small patch that has been completed. The Bermuda is a bluish color in the dew - before I put in my first hour this morning.

What made the day so spectacular for me was how quiet it was. No one was mowing. No one was running power tools in their garage. McConnell AFB didn't have a bunch of KC-135s and KC-46s taking training flights and shooting landings, Fred was at work so his dogs were indoors, air conditioners were not running...you get the picture.

By now, my right hand is a bit swollen, but not too bad since I switched to doing extreme grasping/pulling with my left hand about mid-morning. In all, I took six turns outside pulling Bermuda for that 5 ½ 6-hour total time. Even the 1 3/4 hours that I put in after dinner were extremely pleasant. (Hunky Husband let me get away with our having DQ treats as dinner - he had a Blizzard, I had a Mocha Moolatte - which is okay considering the totally nutritious meals we had yesterday and for lunch, today.) Fred was at home and his Labs were outdoors, but I was far enough away from their side of our yard that they ignored me. (The Great Pyrenees dogs whose fence is fairly near to my work area bark "Hello", then ignore me.)

I am desperately trying to get the visible Bermuda grass pulled before Tendercare comes out on Monday to core aerate and slit over-seed the lawn with fescue. Because of my progress, today, I have a shot at making it; although, tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday are supposed to be hot - and Sunday will be dedicated to other activities. 

Microsoft Ergonomic Desktop

I'm almost getting used to my new keyboard. I'd been putting up with the truly awful keyboard that came with this computer, for nearly two years - basically because I was too lazy to look for a different keyboard. A couple of weeks ago I got irritated enough that I decided to go for a new keyboard. Doing a very little research, I decided on the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard which was easy to order online through my Microsoft account. Only after it arrived did I discover that I had accidentally ordered the Desktop (keyboard+mouse) instead of only the keyboard. Oh, well. I won't use it when, as now, I am using the mouse to the left of my keyboard; but, I may try the mouse sometime when I am using the mouse to the right of my keyboard. The mouse is configured with a couple of controls that are located for use by one's (right) thumb.

In the above photo, I have pulled the keyboard tray all of the way out (the truly awful keyboard is above the ergonomic keyboard, resting on the desk.) That is not how I normally position it, which is most of the way forward; thus, you would (now) see four keys with white tape over them. I don't have a great sense of touch in my fingers (it's a good thing I don't try to use Braille), so I use little self-sticking bumps or tape to help me "find" certain often-used keys. It reminds me of 1951 when Elder Brother and I put our pennies together to buy a portable typewriter (EB was a junior in high school and taking typing - I was in 8th grade and would not take typing until my own senior year in 1954-55.)

Dad intruded. He covered each key with a square of electrician's tape (he was, after all, a Journeyman electrician.) His theory was that, if we couldn't see the labels on the keys, we would learn to touch-type properly. He was right! By the time I did take typing (which I took only to learn proper forms for letters), I typed so proficiently that Mr Bills put me on one of only three electric typewriters that he had and, later, onto a 10-key adding machine to learn it. Actually, the electric typewriter slowed me down since my throw of the carriage on a manual machine was faster than the electric carriage return.

BTW: It seems strange, but this ergonomic discontinuous keyboard showed me that I was in the habit of striking the "6/^" key with my right index finger. This keyboard has the "6/^" key located to the left of the discontinuity - for striking with the left index finger. Which hand is standard? I no longer know; but, I note that the "7/&" key is nearly twice as wide as the standard letter keys, so I am suspicious that my using my right index finger is "standard".

Odds & Ends - September 2021

Bag of Skin

T. Dawn Schrandt, PA-C (Physician Assistant - Certified)

On the 20th, Dawn did her annual visual scan of my bag of skin. This has been our ritual since 2004 when, on my first visit to her (sent by my primary care physician), she excised and cauterized a pencil-eraser-sized chunk from my upper lip. The biopsy showed it to contain a basil cell carcinoma. Each year, Dawn has taken it upon herself to reduce my mass by excising or freezing off chunks of skin. This time, she froze off several chunks of skin from quarter-sized down to pea-sized on face, hand, armpit, and torso, none of which warranted biopsy. Mostly, they itched or hurt on occasion - enough for me to want to be rid of them. Next exam will be on 9/26/2022. 

Exhuming an unused laptop computer

It proved difficult; but, of course, not impossible to revive Hunky Husband's laptop - unused since June 2018. Well...to be precise, he had picked up his emails on it once or twice in early 2019. What started me out on the quest was the desire to, as mentioned in Big accomplishments this week, to add his laptop to my Norton subscription. The exhumation proved to be a time-sponge. First, I had to wait for it to quit automatically downloading updates to Windows, which the computer started within microseconds of sensing that it had a connection to the internet.

It took about 30 minutes to get Norton re-installed, linked to my subscription, and working properly. All is good.

Finally, the real time-suck was getting the Windows 10 Version 20H2 to download and install properly. I recalled that it had taken me a few months to figure out how to get a successful install on this desktop computer; but, for the life of me, I couldn't recall how I had finally succeeded. I looked online for guidance. Found nothing useful. Before going to bed, last night, I scratched my head until I recalled that the problem solution for this machine involved my deleting some files. Which ones? Well...it had something to do with the automatic update trying to download files, but finding that some of those files were already downloaded.

Aha! I searched HH's laptop's hard drive, finally finding where downloaded files were stored. It took about an hour, but I deleted all of the files that had been downloaded on 9/26/2021. (No, I wasn't sitting contemplating my naval. The laptop is several years old, and slow...and there were bunches of files that required administrative OK to delete.) I then restarted the download and install process. All through the night, whenever I awoke, I visited HH's den to see how his laptop was doing. Each time it seemed to be chuckling right along. From the time I re-started the download and install of Windows 10 Version 20H2 sequence, it took another 12 hours to complete the installation. But it is done! It worked! I am happy!

COVID-19 Booster

Being of advanced years, HH and I now qualify for receiving booster COVID-19 shots. A few minutes ago, I checked (again!) our county's website to see if they were allowing appointments to be made. Yes, indeed. I made appointments for HH and me to get those shots on the morning of the 30th. The 29th had plenty of openings, but I decided to give them a day to work out the kinks in the system that is being restarted. For the past couple of months or so, all COVID-19 shots have been walk-in, rather than by appointment.

ADDITION OF 9/28/2021 - Machine Requirements

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

If you are about to install Windows 10 on your PC, you might want to know if your device is capable of running the latest operating system from Redmond. Windows 10 version 20H2, which is released today, has the same requirements as its predecessor, version 2004.

 

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

More Windows 10 version 20H2 resources:

Windows 10 Version 20H2 System Requirements

Windows 10 version 2004 will require a PC which fits the following specifications:

• • Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
  • RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
  • Hard disk space: 32 GB for both 64-bit and 32-bit OS
  • Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later
  • Display resolution: 800 x 600, a minimum diagonal display size for the primary display of 7-inches or larger.

Notice the storage size requirement. For Windows 10 version 1809 and prior, it was 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS. For Windows 10 version 1903, 1909 and 2004 the value is at least 32GB. This is related to the reserved storage feature.

Also, storage controllers used in devices that run Windows 10 for desktop editions must meet the following requirements:

• • Storage controllers must support booting using the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and implement device paths as defined in EDD-3.
  • Storage host controllers and adapters must meet the requirements for the device protocol used and any requirements related to the device storage bus type.
  • Bus-attached controllers must implement the correct class/subclass code as specified in the PCI Codes and Assignments v1.6 specification.

The processor should meet the following requirements:

• • Compatible with the x86 or x64 instruction set.
  • Supports PAE, NX and SSE2.
  • Supports CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, and PrefetchW for 64-bit OS installation

Tip: Consider getting an SSD/NVMe drive instead of a hard drive if you use Windows 10 daily. It will greatly improve your user experience. Also, check out the post The REAL System Requirements for Windows 10.

If one follows that last link, above, one learns the optimal system requirements:

...the optimal hardware configuration for Windows 10 looks at least as follows:

• • Processor: Intel 8th generation processors (Intel i3/i5/i7/i9-7x), Core M3-7xxx , Xeon E3-xxxx, and Xeon E5-xxxx processors, AMD 8th generation processors (A Series Ax-9xxx, E-Series Ex-9xxx, FX-9xxx) or ARM64 processors (Snapdragon SDM850 or later)
  • RAM: 4 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 16 GB for 64-bit
  • SSD/NVMe: at least 128 GB for both 64-bit and 32-bit OS
  • Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later
  • Display resolution: 800 x 600, a minimum diagonal display size for the primary display of 7-inches or larger.

I don't know about you, but that last bit is a waste for me - mostly beyond my ken. Obviously, HH's laptop is old enough that it does not fulfill the requirements stated as optimal.