Based on what you've said, and making assumptions about what you haven't told us: First, consider seeing if the problems persist when you (one at a time): Perform a clean boot. Completely disable anti-viruses etc. Disable hard drive indexing. Run in safe mode.
The Dell laptop I am typing on works fine with Ubuntu 16.04. It even enables the touch screen which I discovered a couple years ago by accident. Only the touchpad is a bit sensitive and senses my hand hovering nearby and does crazy things like moving the cursor while I am trying to type. I am used to it now and more careful of my hand placement but once in a long while if I am typing without watching the screen it will surprise me. All in all, Dell hardware is great with Linux in my limited experience. BTW both ToS and TWS have install packages for Linux. If you can do all you got to do with one or the other of those platforms then Linux could be a thing for you. Before you toss the laptop, download Ubuntu and give it a go. It will maybe take you a week or two to get familiar with some of the Linux ways of doing things but a surprising amount of ordinary routine tasks are performed almost exactly like you would do them in W7. I really like the flexibility of LibreOffice after wrestling with unceasing updates to MS Office. I am using Thunderbird for email and Firefox (I know, there are better web browsers for specialized stuff but FF I am used to from running it on Android) for web. Gimp for graphics. OpenCPN for marine navigation. Transmission for bittorrent. Handbrake for DVD transcoding. OpenShot for video edit, Kazam for screencast. FreeCAD for CAD work though I admit it is a bit kludgy but I look for it to improve soon. RhythmBox for playing MP3 as it is very jukebox-like. VLC for playing vids and also doing other video tasks. And other tools for system maintenance and stuff that I won't bother listing. Linux is not just for computer hobbyists or web servers any more. It's not just ready for the mainstream. It is already here. It just doesn't do VB. Since MS doesnt WANT it to run on Linux I say the problem is with VB and MS, not Linux, and getting away from VB/VBA altogether is probably a positive game changer. I prefer to stay away from Wine or VMWare or similar, as much as possible. YMMV.
Linux has come a long way towards user-friendliness. Ubuntu and the other user-friendly flavors are not like Slackware; they’re usable for the typical user. (Not that Slack is bad, it just requires a bit too much System Admin experience for the average user.)
OMG Scat, listen to yourself. It took 3 minutes to boot. This is not an issue. You've just been spoiled by all the new and fancy. *sniffs* It makes me sad that 3 minutes is considered "a long time" now by peeps like us. Scat...Just turn on the PC and then walk the dog, make breakfast, take a shower. Ug!
Not the point. Most claim their W10 boots in 6 seconds or so. Why should mine be much longer...unless there is something wrong? And if so, I'd like to fix it.
I "think" my point is that we should not fret over boot times being "long". However you are on a mission, to get your Win10 boot times of a few mins down to maybe 6 seconds? With SSD, the only think I can think of that would hinder that boot time would be the add-ons in the start menu/registry. Look for the startup items in there, and delete the extraneous ones. You might be able to shave off .05 seconds from the boot time with some pruning.
I was going to mention my only YouTube video: How to Install Your New SSD into an Active Windows, however you already wiped Windows 10. You do not need to erase your Windows to install an SSD or M.2 drive. A full reinstall would be a major loss of your time and effort. After I switched from a Seagate 7200 RPM hard drive to a SanDisk Extreme II 480GB, my desktop was 4-8 times faster depending on the operation. My Dec 2013 SanDisk Extreme II only has an 80 TBW rating. However, it's still working after 5 years no problem. Its SMART stat, read using HD Tune Pro 5.60, shows only 251 GB written. SSD SMART Power On Hours Count is 19,797 hours (that's a lot of hours ). In my video, to transfer the Windows partitions and adjust the partition sizes I use $50 Paragon Partition Manager. You can also buy $80 Paragon Hard Disk Manager Advanced which has more features. For your drive, I recommend Samsung and an M.2 NVMe if your system will support it. All 4 drives below have a 5 year warranty: $168 512 GB Samsung 970 PRO 512GB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280, 600 TBW $120 500 GB WD BLACK SN750 NVMe PCIe M.2 2280, 300 TBW $150 512 GB Samsung 860 PRO SSD, 600 TBW $68 500 GB SanDisk Ultra SSD, 200 TBW With an SSD, even on an older system running at SATA II, your system will run ≈5 times faster. With an NVMe M.2 running at full write speed, which is typically around 2300 MB/s, your system will be so fast your program load times will be almost instantaneous provided your system is fast enough to support it. MAKE ALL CHANGES AT YOUR OWN RISK All 3 of our computers are still using Windows 7. The 5-monitor desktop computer in my video uses Windows 7 Pro; our 2 Lenovo laptops use Windows 7 Home. The problem I have with Windows 10 is it has a reputation of reporting user usage information back to Microsoft. Microsoft calls the information they receive from your Windows 10 computer "Telemetry." See YouTube video Windows 10 Spying is worse than I ever imagined. Although I know quite a bit about Windows and computers, I chose and installed all the parts in the above desktop, I really prefer not to deal with computer problems, installing software and hardware, etc... I consider computer-related problems a distraction from my main goal.
Perhaps my greatest frustration with forced W10 updates is that they don’t allow me to get a system working and LEAVE IT ALONE. Their continual upgrades break stuff... they force me onto the bleeding edge! Forbes: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fo...ows-10-upgrade-problem-price-cost-update/amp/ Microsoft Issues Windows 10 Upgrade Warning the latest update for Windows 10 (patch KB4482887) has crippled gaming performance on the platform across both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Microsoft has now confirmed the problem and issued an official warning about the update.