Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
What I would do is buy a new hard drive and install it, and keep your old hard drive attached as a second disk (if you have the room) or in a drawer, to serve as a backup. Before you shut it down, though, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11 and choose the option to create Windows 11 installation media. This will let you use a USB thumbdrive to create a Windows 11 boot device. You should be able to then boot off of this USB drive and step through the relatively simple installation wizard to install it on your new hard drive. You should not need a product key at this time; you can activate it later if you want to and you may actually discover that there is a product activation linked to your Microsoft account. If it's not nagging you about activation, you're good to go. And if you don't mind the nagging, you can actually continue to use it this way, albeit some nonfunctional things like customization options are disabled.
Note that if you install Home, you are basically required to log in with a Microsoft Account, and it's difficult to avoid even with Pro. In know plenty of people are ideologically opposed to it, but IMO it's not worth fighting Microsoft over and actually provides some nice benefits (i.e., roaming files, synchronized browser profiles, that kind of thing.)
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