I'll have to chew on this info for a while, about the two op systems.  And thanks for the tip on Ublock too.

So far I'm just running it from the usb but the difference in speed is already noticeably different and faster.  I still need Windows for a couple of things so I guess I'll look into partitioning the drive.  It looks and feels just like Windows so I'm pretty happy it's already working.  Any hot tips on the best way to set it up to have access to both operating systems?  I'm a real newb at this stuff so anything appreciated.

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Linux automatically detects the presence of Windows on your system when you go to install Linux. What it will do is ask you if you want to install alongside Windows. This is what I usually do, and I can assure you it is very easy to set up and works very reliably. It carves out a chunk of your hard drive to install Linux on, of a size you can specify with a sliding bar (it shows you how much of the Windows partition is used, how much is free, and so on.) Then it installs a special program to boot up your computer. What happens when you boot your computer after that is that as soon as the POST process is over, you get a menu asking you which operating system you want to boot up. The default is Linux, with a ten-second timer to continue booting Linux automatically if you don't press any buttons. Or you can select Windows from the menu, at which point Windows boots as normal.

Linux is highly adaptable at customizing this start menu, and automatically updates it if you install yet another Linux version on your hard drive, giving you two versions of Linux and one of Windows.

I've done all of these things over the years with no problems. Then, if you want to delete Linux and go back to Windows (you won't, but ...) you can run some Windows command that will restore the normal Windows boot option if you want. You'll have to look at your particular version of Windows to do that.

This is all very easy and convenient, because you can install both operating systems on the same hard drive, without even having to open your computer's case or buy another hard drive or anything else. Actually, I think installing Linux on a separate hard drive would be more difficult, because the bootloader might not be able to find Linux on the other hard drive. I'm not sure, but the dual-boot, one-hard drive approach is something that is extremely convenient, automatic, and reliable.

Also, I was running it from the usb and when I opened it the next day everything had reverted like the font sizes and date.  Is that normal or did I miss something?

When you boot from the live USB, none of your changes are saved. If you want to save any changes to the OS, you will have to install Mint persistently on a drive. If you still want to play around with it and not make a big commitment, you can buy a cheap USB 3.0 flash drive (32-64 GB will be sufficient) and install Linux on that. With that, you would need to boot to your live USB environment on your current flash drive, and then make sure to have the other flash drive plugged in so that you could install to it. When the installer prompts you for which drive to install on, make sure to choose the 2nd flash drive, otherwise you may overwrite your Windows drive or your live USB flashdrive.

That's good to know.  I think I'll try to avoid that and look into the partition way of things.  Thanks

You're welcome, but trying to partition a single drive for multiple operating systems will actually be more difficult, especially since you'll have to resize your existing Windows partition and Windows doesn't always play nice with Linux on the same drive. The last time I tried that, I was trying to put Linux on half of my laptop's SSD after I had installed Windows on the other half. Lo and behold, the Windows boot manager did not like sharing a drive with Linux's boot manager GRUB, so the dual-booting failed. I ended up wiping the drive and only installing Linux after I realized I didn't need Windows for daily use. Now on my desktop at home, I do use both Windows and Linux, but I have them on separate internal drives. The only thing I have to do to swap between them is to reboot my PC, pull up the device boot menu, and select the drive with the operating system that I want to use. It's a clean setup, and I can even specify in my PC's settings which drive to default to when my computer boots. And on my daily use laptop, I have Linux on the internal drive, but I carry a portable SSD that has Windows on it that I can boot from.

As long as you look closely at what drive you're partitioning, you shouldn't have to worry about overwriting the wrong drive. The listed drives for partitioning generally have the manufacturer of the device along with the capacity of the drive as its name. For example, a SanDisk Cruzer 32 gigabyte flashdrive might show up as something like SANDISK_32GB. As long as your live USB and flashdrive that you want to install Linux on are not identical in model and storage capacity, the chance of mixing them up is very low.

I installed Linux Mint Cinnamon onto a sluggish old Windows 8 Toshiba and it has been running like a champ for the last few weeks.  Thank you for the info.

Now I want to dual boot the Windows 11 laptop but I've never done a dual boot.  Looking at Yootube there's a ton of how-to vids but is there anything I particularly need to know or anything I should look out for?  How much space should ideally be allotted to each Op System or does that matter?

The easiest way to dual boot is to install another drive in your laptop and load Linux on that. Depending on your laptop, you may have some good options for this. For example, on my 13 year old Lenovo ThinkPad T420, I already had an SSD with Windows 7 on it, but I also wanted to use Linux alongside it. The T420, in addition to the SATA slot that the main drive was hooked up to, has an MSATA slot (the pre-cursor to the current trend of M.2 SATA) that was easily accessible from the bottom of the laptop. I bought an MSATA drive, installed it, and then installed Artix to it with no issue. The only thing I have to do when it boots up is to press the right key to bring up my list of devices to boot into, otherwise it defaults to the Linux drive. If you'll post what model your Windows 11 laptop is, I can check for you to see if installing a second drive is a viable option. Worst case scenario you could install Linux on a portable SSD and hook that up whenever you want to use Linux. I use a portable SSD for my current laptop, but I have Windows on it since I don't need it often and can get by with daily driving Linux.

Otherwise, you're going to have to use Disk Management in Windows to manually resize your partition. Should you do this, I'd recommend leaving at least 60 GB for Windows 11 given how much space it continues to gobble up with each update. Leave more if you plan to use Windows a decent amount, or if you are currently using more than 60 GB for it. With Linux, the base system is drastically smaller, so you don't have to set aside as much space for it (could probably get away with 30 GB with normal use). Ultimately, it depends on your use case and how big your current drive is. I personally don't recommend putting Linux and Windows on the same drive, because the Windows boot loader gets all jealous when it sees the Linux bootloader and causes some problems, probably by design.