Windows 11 forced update has completely fucked me. It enabled bitlocker and has locked me out of my drive with all my work on it. I have no key to unlock it and have no way to get through it. This has put me off windows forever. If anyone can help me get my files from this thing I would be eternally grateful and willing to pay.
I’m no fan of apple either for other reasons.
How stupid is it for me to jump into Linux? Anyone have resources to teach myself?
I think you are right. My computer is 12 years old and hobbles through everything, I was trying to limp through this year with it and I probably clicked through something like an idiot to get things done without paying attention and now I have fucked myself over. I absolutely hate Microsoft for forcing this down everyone’s throats, reddit is filled with horror stories like mine with this exact issue.
Looks like I will need to find a cheap replacement machine and install Linux mint. Hopefully it can run Onshape and Fusion well enough.
You can get a decent laptop workstation like a Dell precision for fairly cheap if you don’t mind it being a few years old. I’m seeing some pretty good ones on eBay for around $350. If you’d prefer a desktop you’re looking more like $400-500. If you already have a decent GPU to add on your own you can get one for $300ish.
This guy refurbishes older but capable laptops. He doesn’t have anything in stock at the moment but they are some of the best value for money for a laptop. They are solid machines and much better than a lot of the cheap crap you can get for the same price new since these are more heavy duty laptops for businesses. https://salemtechsperts.com/collections/laptops-for-sale?page=1