Linux

It's what I did, though this was on a Windows 8.1 machine a decade ago. I've heard people talk about Win 10 and 11 being a bit bitchier about dual booting.

I think some of what made my conversion to Linux a success was having that fallback. Linux Is Not Windows, and you're going to have to relearn how to do a bunch of little things that are impossible to see coming. There are little things you do, little utilities you use that are different in Linux. "I double click this file and a thing opens, I don't know what you call the thing." that kind of stuff. And you'll need to do something to turn it in on time. Having your old WIndows partition means you can reboot your computer, do the thing the way you're used to, get it done, and while you're at it look up what that program is so you can find out how to do it in Linux.

I've seen people not give themselves that fallback, and then get pissed at Linux over a little thing that is possible, they just hadn't learned how, and learning how while trying to get something done is frustrating.