Installing Windows 10 Pro, finds NO Internet

Actually, I WANTED a clean install. My old Windows 10 is full of accumulated junk from the years it's been running. I figured since my PLAN is to go to Windows 11 (AFTER I have a really good system backup so if Windows 11 remains as dreadful as it seems I can revert to Windows 10), I may as well start clean. It takes about a day or so to put all the stuff I need on the new system.

As for the local account... I think it's more than that - though I don't claim any Windows installation expertise. The install quit when it couldn't talk to the Internet. It let me create a local account, but it wouldn't go any farther with the install. I don't know what all it DIDN'T do, but it was a pretty sad looking Windows 10.

Fortunately, doing it the way I did, appears to have worked. Clumsy and cumbersome as it was, I have an Ethernet and Wifi, and all the normal, often annoying, Windows 10 things appear to be there. Someone with more familiarity with the whole installation process may not have been stymied, but for me, the three-step install worked.

It makes me wonder, though, how people with even less familiarity than I have would have gotten past this when there aren't any drivers and the installation just quits. Especially if you don't have another system on which to go chasing around after missing pieces.

It does. It provided some horrendously long series of numbers this time. I have NO idea what the difference is, but it worked. Thanks for the help!

Not only is it going to be backed up, though I'm not using Macrium any more, all the information of what worked is now stored in a secure note in the password manager.

And once I finish putting all the programs and such on it, I'll do a system image so if I have to, I can go back to Windows 10.

My primary front end for organizing and initial optimization is Adobe Lightroom Classic. For the heavy lifting, Adobe Photoshop. HDR gets done in Aurora HDR or Nik HDR Efex Pro, Image stacking mostly in Helicon Focus with occasional Affinity Photo, for high ISO situations (of which there are sometimes many) Topaz Denoise AI, sharpening is with Topaz Sharpen AI, PIE for looking at EXIF data and Sequator helps with merging star shots to control noise. I usually have at least 2 programs up, often 3 or 4, and with only 32 GB of memory I was sometimes having problems. Thus the new system.

Ah, wrong "imaging"... I've been using EaseUS Todo Backup for the last year or so. Prior to that I used Macrium, but it's harder to see what's in a backup with Macrium. I don't remember the process any more, but it was more involved than Todo Backup.

I also vaguely recall the free version of Macrium did full and differential backups, but NOT incremental? I don't recall for sure, but if I recall I wound up with very large backups.

I typically only do 2 things - system image and partition backups. I do incremental daily with full once/week. The incrementals are a LOT smaller than the differentials, but they'd be slower to restore.

I would do a full backup once in a month. No need for incremental backup, as long as you keep your most important files on a USB Flash drive.