Newsletter Archives

• Small desktops

  Posted on June 6, 2025 at 03:00 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  Recently, I ordered a small computer for a desk that doesn’t have a lot of room. The HP Elite Mini 800 G9 Desktop PC is a small form factor model with two video outputs, several USB-A ports, one USB-C port — and no floppy or CD-ROM drive.

  To give you a sense of size, the photo at left shows the unit next to an 8.5″ paper cutter. One always has to balance serviceability with size.  There is not going to be a lot of room in this unit, but at 32GB RAM with a 256GB SSD drive, this will service a worker just fine.

  At a little over $1,000, I consider it well priced.

  Is physical size an issue for you? If you are thinking about a desktop to run Windows 11, would you consider a small form factor like the many mini-PCs out there, or are you going for a more traditional desktop with a larger form factor?

  Hardware Mini-PCs, Patch Lady Posts, small PC

• Upgrading a tiny PC to Win10 v 1511

  Posted on November 14, 2015 at 12:17 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  How about that. I wasn’t expecting this. From CJ:

  I have a small  Kangaroo PC that came with WIN 10 Home (very small, the size of a cell phone, you should check it out). I use it to stream video to my television from Amazon, NetFlix, etc.

  When I logged on today, it tried to update to the new version (1511, 10586) but I immediately got an “error” which I clicked on and it said to “ Install the next version of windows”.  I had previously pulled out the SD card (used for expanded storage) based on your article indicating that the SD card had caused some systems to hang.  I re-inserted the SD card, rebooted and checked for updates again.  It found the WIN 10 update again and this time downloaded it and installed with no issues.  The only complaint I have is that it took 1.5hrs on my slow processor.  Once it rebooted there was a noticeable delay while it finished the installation and hung the screen up with a message indicating it had installed a new version.  

  I would really have preferred a little more information on what is going on during the installation process, but maybe that is just me.

  Other small PC, Windows 10