Is this any help https://www.msi.com/Laptop-Accessory/USB-C_Docking_Station_Gen-2-1P15

Ah no sorry I was looking at the OP system spec which was still a desktop. Maybe a Dock would offer additional ports?

You can pick up USB-C Pcie cards very cheap. Add one of those and gain 2 more ports. Or just get an AJA or BM I/O card.

And I agree as well. I your first NLE is the one you know best. They all get the basic job done. But having worked in UK Broadcast TV the stability of Avid was a deal breaker. Backwards and forwards project compatability crucial and Avid media for long form meant no other NLE could cut it. FCP 7 was an interesting tool but Apple killed that market with

No I don't believe you can get Avid to use the internal HDMI as a separate fullscreen output. On my laptop I use an AJA T-Tap box to give me HDMI and SDI output but it needs a thunderbolt connection which my HP Z book has.

Is de activate MC First. Then uninstall MC on the current OS. Then upgrade OS. Install new MC. Reactivate MC

I use restore points aa a way to rollback. But I have had restore points fail to work after key window updates. Personally I'd clone my drive before a major upgrade. Drives are cheap. My time is expensive.

I've taught loads of Avid courses and students have to download the ebook. Never had an issue with a corrupt download. Mostly it's opening the book that causes the issues. You can download the ebook as many times as you like so try re downloading it. I think you can even preview it on the Avid page.

Look for a, 3rd party tool called MDVx

Lots of discussions on Premiere and AAF and my understanding is that Adobe haven't implemented Avids AAF protocol according to the Avid specs. So the metadata in the Adobe AAF makes sense to Premiere but not to Media Composer. Its all uphill from there. Yes you can get it to work but its often different issues on differnet jobs and the time wasted