Spikemyminpin, to BC Forums!
Everyone here has offered good suggestions, though the one that Nick posted was the easiest, and if further machine information is needed, then one of the other alternatives. I use the msinfo32 utility frequently, as beginning with Windows 8, the old System Information link, which provided the same results, was removed.
Linux MInt Xfce is indeed a great XP replacement, depending on specs, it may be able to run MATE instead, which includes a lot more out of the box. However the good thing about Xfce, one can add just what extras are wanted, and there are lots at no cost to you. No activation, no strings attached, just a free, fast OS to run.
Yes, most all of your Data can be transferred to your Linux install. It's best (for safety) to make two copies of what you wish to transfer. A quick way would be the popular Flash drive for transfer, with an extra copy somewhere else, such as the external backup drive you should have & be using.
You can even use GoogleDrive or OpenDrive (GMail or Microsoft account required for each). Both offers 15GB of online storage at no cost, though their's a size limit for a single file or folder (it's huge). At the current time, and hasn't been for years, it's not a requirement to be running a Windows OS to use a Microsoft Account (Outlook.com email & OpenDrive for storage), and the spam filters are as good as that of GMail. Both are great, considering they're free services. Some may say that Microsoft sorts through customer's emails, while I cannot deny nor confirm this actually happens, the other brands of services has similar clauses in their EULA, and Google even encourages their members to read these things in a notification that "this isn't the usual ya-da".
And the other benefit of GMail, if you run the Google Chrome browser, and you stay signed into it, you can install it in LInux Mint & all of your bookmarks & most extensions will be there. Same with Firefox, if you're running Firefox Sync. Extensions that are designed to work with Windows only will not be installed to Mint, nor any other Linux based OS.
Should you require further assistance with anything pertaining to your install, don't hesitate to ask. There are no "dumb" questions here, as we all were Linux newbies at some point.
And should you have issues with a particular component of your system, including networking & printing, feel free to open a new Topic for discussion.
Good Luck on your install and glad to have you in the Linux family.