that replaces my sturdy 8 year old laptop, with 400% the CPU benchmark speed on one core, and above 800% the benchmark speed on new guy 8 core speed versus old guy 4 core speed. Naturally, all of those published benchmarks are fine, but the clock will be ticking on warranty replacements if this new guy is one of those 5% new shipments where this or that component is defective, wasn't properly assembled, etc. You know the drill, to be sure your new box is what it claims to be.

(1) Which free software diagnostic packages do you recommend

— to verify the SSD and hard drives meet advertised speed and performance specs?

— to verify the CPU and graphics card, and whether any chips aren't functioning?

— to test RAM speed and whether any chips aren't functioning?

— to put keyboard and mouse through its pace?

(2) Any recommended de-bloat software?

(3) To convert to a more Windows 7-like menu structure, what script do you recommend?

(4) The last time my old guy crashed, and with Macrium Reflect, I easily restored the C drive system from an offline drive I successful booted up with a Linux Lite USB stick to go online, check and see if my partitions seemed to be intact, and even open up a couple of LibreOffice ODT docs that I'd been working on in WIndows 10, to see if Linux Lite's version of Libre worked - no problem.

The ease of connecting to the internet, and running one of my ODT documents in USB Linux Lite, made me wonder if any of the CougarBoard geeks had any success with dual booting into Windows 10 and Linux, or any war stories against, give past incompatibility of WIndows with Linux. (I looked into dual booting maybe 6 years ago, an eternity in PC matters, but didn't trust it enough to dive in.

Have those problems been fixed, and are dual boots now reliable with current Windows 10? 

I'm a confirmed Windows 10 user because I have apps that simply require it, but if there was a reliable way to dual boot, I'd look at it just to escape Windows feckless behavior. My last crash came immediately after the latest Windows upgrade. On the next boot up, I had blue screen of death, and none of the normal remedies worked, so I reached for my Marcrium Reflect, and was restored without a hitch.

I know there are trade-offs in such a setup where Windows and Linux have a chance to get tied up in knots. I'd like honest feedback, pro or con, to assess the current reliability of dual boot systems.

I'm not asking for a dual boot setup to be bullet proof before I dive in. I just don't want to be bullet-ridden, if the creative Linux package producers have not figured out how to live on the same C drive as Microsoft who wants to claim all real estate on C:

THANKS for considering and responding to any of these questions. You know better than anyone why I'm asking them. I just don't have your technical expertise, so I'd like to avoid minefields if possible.