Free PC with no disc drive… what to do?

[vstdls]

I think the short answer is this could be a lot more trouble than its worth unless this is a super high-end PC.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Almost any PC of almost any spec made within the past 12 years will serve the OPs 2 indicated use cases almost flawlessly.

Some people don't like rubbing 2 brain cells together...but that's why they make Macs.

[zerocrossing]

I think the short answer is this could be a lot more trouble than its worth unless this is a super high-end PC.

What’s funny is, the person ended up giving it to someone else anyway. Oh well, no biggie.

[ghettosynth]

I think the short answer is this could be a lot more trouble than its worth unless this is a super high-end PC.

What’s funny is, the person ended up giving it to someone else anyway. Oh well, no biggie.

For future reference, it's almost trivial these days to setup something like this up for peanuts. Windows is installed from a USB stick and SSDs are cheaper than candy bars. You don't have to buy windows to set it up. You just install it and then you later give it your key to authenticate. It's a less restrictive demo than Reaper as it will just keep running without letting you do things like change the background screen.

That said, you can buy a mini-pc for $100 with Windows Pro that will work fine for this. I have several older used machines that are corporate surplus as well as a couple of newer mini pcs.

[vstdls]

I think the short answer is this could be a lot more trouble than its worth unless this is a super high-end PC.

What’s funny is, the person ended up giving it to someone else anyway. Oh well, no biggie.

Oh well! Well as previous poster said, if anything pops up again - you can get something going for peanuts. It's all extremely trivial nowadays.