well, almost the same I could say because of my experience with manjaro " Why I switched from Manjaro to Archlinux" . I would summarize the change with these words: since I switched to Archlinux, no problems here, two years and I don't have to reinstall all the system.
I downloaded the 17.0.2 XFCE iso yesterday but it didn't boot at all on my machine, which is many years old. I've tried copying the iso in many ways to my thumb key to no avail. (First with Linux Mint's own dedicated utility, then with dd. I then tried under Windows 7 with Rufus, but I was not even able to make it... I had verified the integrity of the file with gpg. Go figure.
Up until this date, Manjaro still does not support secure boot under UEFI. fblais, even your computers are a few years old, they may already have UEFI/secure boot. Hence Manjaro won't be able to boot.
For crying out loud... just run it through Virtual Box. I don't even have to dual boot Windows and Linux.