If it’s not connected to the Internet the imaginary “spyware” doesn’t matter. I agree you should update to a current OS, but it’s hardly a solution to your current problem.
In the long term you need to review your overall strategy, as a single failure preventing you from accessing important data is not acceptable. What would you do if the hard disk had given up the ghost rather than the display? (That’s assuming it is just the display - if you can’t access the PC you really can’t know what the true problem is.
regular images and backup are taken for those very reasons
many years ago a HDD only around 10 months old failed and stopped working at the time the only way for retrieval for data was
using the freezer method
in comparison i have HDD's over 10 years old and one that is nearly 20 years old running XP and win 7 dual boot and still going strong
thereby hardware failures can happen at any time no matter what is installed on them and at least weekly backup images with daily data backups for altered or new files and-such are very imminent in some cases at the end of the working shift
thereby putting new O/S software on existing hardware does non guarantee for stop thereof hardware failure
the monitor fails for power on and fuse in plug is tested and ok, standby light does non come on either
i have since borrowed an old CRT monitor [which gives a better viewing experience] for now till a replacement monitor [ordered] arrives
Shell fibre broadband go-live-date 19/05/2022

Edited by gods_child (Sun 22-May-22 17:51:02)