Using win 10

A Windows XP...thats archeology. He worked so well that all the banks used it on the ATM. So Microsoft decided to shut it down. That will cost billions to us...
PAR I do agree, it's a working tool, not the last fashion, so before changing of OS it has to show a huge improvement not simply new graphics. I have a similar curriculum with personal computers, except I never could install the beta W 3.1 as always one of the 34 3.5" diskettes failed to be read, so I gave it back to Microsoft...The DOS by Microsoft was a shame, I went fast to DR DOS, I became the king of the batch command. I was so fed up by Microsoft while attempting to make lengthy complex calculations, between the problems of memory, the famous 516Ko with the extended and paginated memory to a meager 1 mega that I switched to a Unix 4.3-Tahoe. No graphics...More austere than a 1985 soviet super, or a polish market in the Jaruselski years but that worked flawlessly with a fabulous 2 megas, waouuuu. Happily I had very qualified friends for all these problems. I have lost too much time with leaking memories, and other problems with the Windows.

Tom
You can use Wine with Mint, that works very well with the older Windows softs, it simulates 95, 98, XP SP3 to perfection (and other also).
All the standalone even from Windows 95 no problem. Most of the boat design softs also as they use their own library. There are plenty of softs for simple structural calculations.
My short list of useful old softs I keep for Wine.
The standalone Convert v. 4.1 a genial small soft for convert in different units pressure, mass, length, temperature, distance etc... works with no problem. When you're lost between PSI, pascal, atmosphere, bars...Many thanks to Joshua F. Madison.
Paint Shop Pro 4.12, the best simple paint for retouching pics, no problem. As it is a trial version of the shareware it will stop one day, generally at 60 days. No panic; you delete the folder Paint Shop Pro in the Program folder, clean the registry with CCleaner v.3.25 and reinstall again...This old soft is a pleasure; very effective, easy to get in hand. Do not try the versions with a hacked key, generally it's malware.

The java standalone softwares no big problem, you can install the version 8 of Oracle Java. Or try before the clones like IcedTea, the older applets work almost always. The java browser softs work also on Firefox, but not on Chrome (that will be solved in the month, a brawl between Oracle and Google).
There is plenty of documentation, that need a bit of tweaking.
Nothing hard, just bothering. The NASA has plenty of interesting applets. Martin Hepperle has a nice site for foils lovers, with applets...Internet can be more tempting than a ice cream store...

 

Interesting stuff I use gimp but would like to be more competent with it lots of fun.
Love that linux mint wish there were more hours in the day. tried Wine but not enough time to get it right.