This is very much the response you’d get on here, but changing to Linux is genuinely your best bet.
Make a copy of your files somewhere. External hard drive is best, but I guess you could sign up for a free trial of Dropbox or something just to backup the data and then end your subscription once your files are safe on the new machine. If you want to keep your data safe you should probably have backups anyway though. :)
You’ll need a USB dongle to put Linux on. Linux Mint is popular among people coming from Windows, and they have a nice guide to creating a bootable USB. It’s really very easy - you install a program on your computer (Etcher), open a file in it while your USB is connected, and press a button.
You’ll need to tell your computer to boot from the USB rather than from the hard drive. WikiHow has a detailed description of this. In the best case it’s very easy, but computer manufacturers and Windows have made it harder in recent years so that people will buy new computers every time they get slow or updates run out. It’s still not hard, it just requires finding the right settings.
Once you’ve booted from the USB, Linux is up and running, but you have not installed it yet. If you don’t like it and want to go back to Windows, you can just shut off the computer, remove the USB, and restart it back to Windows as if nothing has happened. If you like Linux and want to install it, the option to do so will be clearly visible. If you want to keep the installation of Windows alongside Linux this needs to be prepared from Windows in advance - feel free to ask if that’s relevant. :)
It sounds like an intimidating process, but it’s really pretty easy. :)
Boot from USB (press f12 or delete or spam your keyboard and pray)
Overwrite your windows with Linux
I would recommend shrinking your drive and making soom room for linux to dual boot if the initial switch seems scary, so yoj can switch between windows and linux.
Over all, it’s not hard. You just need to watch a couple of vids and ask for help if you need it.
This is very much the response you’d get on here, but changing to Linux is genuinely your best bet.
It sounds like an intimidating process, but it’s really pretty easy. :)
If that was intimidating to read,
I would recommend shrinking your drive and making soom room for linux to dual boot if the initial switch seems scary, so yoj can switch between windows and linux.
Over all, it’s not hard. You just need to watch a couple of vids and ask for help if you need it.