Even IE11 is out of date, in fact IE is dead, basically, MS has a new browser called Edge. Although it won't be as familiar as IE at first, it's a much better browser. But again, why bother with an MS browser? I don't think I've used it in 10 years.

If there's a free upgrade to Windows 11 (didn't even know that existed yet, myself) I would take it. Windows 10 is very nice, a switch from 7 but not too dramatic, been on it for many years, had not issues with it ... Windows 8 was more a dramatic change actually, people complained and now 10 is more like 7.

And yes you should do windows updates for security and performance reasons (or update to 10 or 11).

Trying to keep things familiar to avoid frustration. Caused some instead.

and others here will probably have better information and advice to give to you, but it's my opinion that you should not let a new operating system be written over the old one. If you can't get your current machine to work properly, either take it to an expert you trust, or give serious thought to purchasing something new. Every time I wander through the laptop section of my local Best Buy I'm astonished at how inexpensive many of them are. It might be worthwhile to go to a store like that and talk things over with the staff.

Good luck to you!

probably need. But don't bother if you don't want to. IE is still around for the few sites that still require it.

Edge is the Microsoft replacement for IE, though, and it works reasonably well, although Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Vivaldi are far superior to it. If you're happy with Chrome, keep using it and ignore IE.

Most refurbs I've seen have Win10 installed, and all the updates you're getting are from the time the machine was taken offline and now. Be a good idea to get them.

Thanks for the advice.

Hopefully I don't brick this one. It has a boatload or three more memory I will probably never use.

Luck has it my daughter showed me how to transfer files via google so I don't have to ask about that also.

Thanks!