One thing has been puzzling me.

In reading several topics in this board, I understand that solo miners (if they still exist) and pools have the option to select the transactions that will be included in their blocks.

So if a pool in creating a new block selects e.g., 6 transactions #1, #2, #4, #5, #6 and #7, deciding to leave out #3 which e.g., had a lower fee than other transactions.

They calculate the merkle root(s), create the block header(s), etc. and pool members start hashing their respective headers.

Someone in the pool uses a nonce that causes the hash to be lower than the target, and that block is added to the blockchain.

My question simply is, how does transaction #3 ever get to the blockchain?

No problem on the timing.   The information was worth the wait.

Interestingly, before asking my questions a few days back, I hadn't found anything on solo mining. I think primarily because I was only looking at posts, articles, videos, etc. from the past couple of years.  My rationale was that anything crypto-related before a few years ago was going to be too ancient, but when I did expand my searches back, I did find information similar to what you provided but I really couldn't trust it completely because of its age. 

I appreciate the more up-to-date information that you provided as I piece it all together; the moment that I have something to tip with, I certainly will!

In the meantime, I have 2 questions:

1. If you solve a block, how do the coin gods know where to send the block reward?  i.e., where does the wallet come into play in all of this?

and

2.  A conceptual question.  In pool mining, I understand that the pool tells the miner what to mine i.e., the nonce.  In solo mining does the miner decide the sequence to mine?  Or is it random within the program?  Like if 2 miners start mining with the same setup, will they be trying to solve the exact same thing?  Or can I mine whatever set of numbers I want?  I'm sure I have a conceptual misunderstanding here.  Can you clear this one up for me.  Thanks.

I'm trying to do exactly what you've done, solo mine several altcoins.  I don't expect it to be highly profitable but it looks like fun.  

I have some really basic questions:

Is there one piece of software that mines all or many of these coins?
Or does each coin have it's own specific software to use for mining?

From reading I'm getting the impression that the same software (miner) can mine different coins, and I just use different ports.

If that's so, what miner do you use?  I'm on Windows 10 but I can change the OS if it's better.

If you could generally walk me through the process or point me to a site that explains it, I'd appreciate it.