He inserted his bootable USB drive. It wasn’t the standard Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft. It was a custom build, a ghost in the machine, whispered about in obscure tech forums:
The installation process for Windows 10 Lite is relatively straightforward. The installation media is a small, 2.5GB ISO file that can be burned to a USB drive or mounted as a virtual drive. Once booted, the installation process guides you through a series of simple steps to get Windows 10 Lite up and running. Windows 10 Lite 32-bit 512 Ram