OK - haven't heard of Macrium Reflect before and will look into it...

I've used mostly Aomei Partition Assistant and had it installed after the first 'clean' Win 10 install plus VLC, so I figured:...

Yeah, I shouldn't do things like this in a hurry, didn't notice the FreeDOS at first, because I entered BIOS and booted from there immediately. Anyway, after some thoughts given, I did the clean...

Yep, I made it clear in my order that I wanted a no OS laptop, yet I got a FreeDOS one. It seems I am going to go the 3rd party partition manager route.

Thanks for image forum rules guide &...

I bought a new laptop (it came with FreeDOS) and wanted to do a fast & clean Windows 10 install, so:

1. I get the boot order right,
2. Boot from my USB stick,
3. Pick the partition and install....