Don't wait for the next laptop, just install Linux now.

It sounds like your laptop is completely unusable anyway, and you can dual boot while you're figuring out if everything works

Mint runs like a scalded dog on my hand-me-down Dell laptop. Yes, the menus work. I'd bet it runs amazing on newer hardware.

That's because Windows 11 now uses React Native for a lot of things, including parts of the Start Menu. So something that shouldn't be, is extremely resource intensive.

Yeah I only use windows at work now, ditched it at home. The start menu takes over a minute to open, and then when it does it ignores clicks for another minute.

Then whenever I want to run outlook I have to search because the start menu doesnt let me set favourites. And I have to wait when I type in Outlook because the first search brings the crappy built in version of outlook (which I have clicked on more than once to be immensely frustrated to see it open) and then wait until "Outlook (classic)" appears and click that.

I discovered some of my less technically able colleagues gave up on Outlook because they assumed it wasn't installed and use the web interface instead. And that is just one of numerous daily frustrations I get with Windows.

Honestly, Windows is now a big steaming pile of crap. All my home devices are on Linux, and I only use Windows at work because I have no choice.

Back in the early 2000s someone said "a experienced Windows user doesn't notice a little bit of lagging"

How old is your pc and how many virsuses do you have lol

i don't even use menus anymore. it's slow. heck I even hate using the mouse these days. We had the right idea back in the 80s and early 90s by running everything via the command line. it's faster. Now to open stuff I just use a launcher. it's faster to type what I want to run then it is to use a mouse to go find it in a menu.