What a day! The computer doesn't know just how close it came to being 'recycled'.
My time-budget for mapping has gone so far in the red I'll probably not be able to justify drawing anything for a month.

I spent half the morning trawling round the net to find an old version of Paint.NET that would run on my machine. I found two and downloaded them both, just in case.
Cynic, me? - let's just say it's a matter of experience!

Then I tried to install the newest one and found that it wanted something called a NET framework v2.0. The Paint software is 5MB, the framework to run it is 20MB. That was annoying to begin with.

The framework had to be downloaded from Microsoft, so I closed down the installation, fired up explorer and off I went to do that. Then I closed explorer, went back to the installation, tried to install the framework and a few seconds later it said it needed MS Installer 3.0...... from Microsoft.

So I closed down the installation again, fired up explorer, visited Mr Gates again and tried to download Installer 3.0.
But then Mr Gates insisted that before he would let me have it, he wanted to poke his nose into my computer to an even greater extent than he is able to do without my permission. I mentally told him to f - off and decided to install the older version of Paint.NET, cos it might be easier.

Out of explorer, into the installation, try to install - oh dear, it says I need to install Net Framework 1.1.
By now, I'm picturing that 'Fork Handles' sketch from the Two Ronnies...
Off I go to Mr Gates again, download NET 1.1, back to the installation, Yay! this one loads with the native installer.

Except it doesn't.

Halfway through the installation it runs into an 'exception', whatever one of those is, and refuses to install. Several more tries confirm it.

So, Paint.NET is dead in the water - at least until Mr Gates declassifies Installer 3.0 (whatever that is) from 'Above Top Secret' and lets me have it without an interrogation. Then I can see if the later version of Paint.NET runs into an exception too.

Back to square one. Looking for something to draw with that doesn't need XP and doesn't have a manual/tutorial the size of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.

If you've derived some amusement from this, at least the day hasn't been completely wasted!

Oh, and for the record, I have nothing to hide from Mr Gates, everything's kosher, it's just a matter of principle - I don't want to go cap in hand to Mr Gates and have him noseying into my affairs every time I want to download something - and that's more important to me than Paint.NET.

It's also the main reason I haven't got XP.

When I retire, I'll have time to learn how to operate Linux...