I just purchased a Larkbox Pro, [$79.99 via ebay from Chuwi] I’m going to use this as a mini-backup ‘server,’ with the help of syncthing, given that I’ve given up on Google Drive’s memory hogging Window’s application!
Setting up, first, like some others, I find the fan louder than I would have expected, more or less like a laptop fan. In any event, the first thing I did was to extract the Windows 11 Product key, and that was a good thing, as I was going to need it later. Now, with only 2 USB ports, and needing to connect keyboard, mouse dongle, and a USB stick for system backup, I used a 4-port non-powered USB hub that worked just fine. My intent was to immediately back up the entire system, but Windows Media Creation failed twice to get through to completion. I used AOMIE Backuper to get myself at least some protection from a system failure, and continued the installation process. [And yes, I’m keeping Linux Mint in reserve.]
Moving on to updating, I found that the system would update, but that they were, not unexpectedly, slow to download and install. Running the Update process a couple of time, including ‘optional’ updates (drivers), eventually got to Windows 11, 23H2 Did one more update check… and found, more updates . So, now needed to update Windows Defender and the update to 23H2 KB4023057,
Now, one of the things I ran into was that the Windows installed was not activated. It was a good thing that I had extracted that Windows Key, as it was not written down anywhere on the box or documentation that I could find. I was able to use it to successfully activate Windows.
Given that I had read a lot of (mostly old) comments about TMP not being implemented, I checked, and yes it was in effect. As best as I can tell, earlier Pro versions used different internals than current ones, which use all or mostly intel parts. So that being the case, download the Intel Driver and Support Assistant, which found a graphics driver update that I decided to install, choosing to do a clean installation.
Restarted, so, tried to give Windows Media Creation one more shot, to create an ISO. Success, so burned to a USB drive.
Now it was time to encrypt the operating system drive.… only to find out, Standard hardware security not supported. So, for my storage drive, Veracrypt. USB drive for storage, encrypted and compressed.
One last thing… system was ignoring setting to keep it awake, so I installed MS PowerToys. However, needed to delete .NET 3.whatever and install .NET 6.~ Developers SDK. Other, higher versions may work as well.
NOTE: I did try booting Linux off of a USB - could do so using the bios, but it did not ‘stick,’ kept coming back to Windows when rebooting. There may be a way to make linux permanent, other than a full install, but I’m not ready to take that step… yet. 