I will give the shibboleth "The job's not done, 'till Lotus won't run." to identify that I have been around windows for longer than I care to remember.
My attempts to add Linux to my computer skill set prompted me to buy a better system than this old Asus Sonicmaster for Ubuntu-Mate 22.04 use, intending dual boot with windows 10.
I bought a "Dell Optiplex 9020 Desktop PC Computer Intel Core i7-4770 3.40 Ghz 32GB Ram 240GB SSD + 1Tb SSHD (Renewed) which arrived several days ago.
Shrinking the Windows 10 partition on the SSD to leave me 100GB to install Ubutntu-Mate 22.04.2 from a USB bootable image, I proceeded to install the image.
Upon completion I had borked* (Messed up) the system and was forced back to try to rebuild this machine from scratch(ings).
I have had several days of propeller head nirvana.
Trying to get things to install but each time install had completed, there was no option to boot Mate, only straight to Windows 10.
After much research I managed to create the Dell Memory stick to restore the system to WIndows 7. ( There was no option for windows 10. Doesn't time go fast?)
I've installed Win 7 and added the service packs. (The myth of the slick "just works" windows behemoth laid to rest. ) Then I added the Intel driver for the ethernet NIC and currently windows update is running. (Phew!!! What a palaver)
This is where my search for better expertise starts.
What is my best way to get a Dual boot system with Windows 10/Ubuntu Mate installed?
Do I?
Find an Old version of Mate that was contemporary with Win 7 and try to "Install Alongside"?
Update the system to Windows 10 and {whatever magic community expert reveals} to install with Dual Boot working?
I expect that I will be editing this as further details emerge.
Thanks for any assistance.
Ian