Ran Zorin 6 from USB drive

Now just let me inform all of you about my current system. Its Acer aspire 3830tg laptop, which has 500GB HDD and 4GB RAM plus 1GB Nvidia GPU. I wanted to test Zorin OS as I heard laurels and seen rave reviews about it.
To try first, I downloaded Zorin Os 6 64-bit (1.5 GB), which was only possible through firefox and on chrome it could not download properly. Later I converted in to a bootable USB installer using universal usb installer. It took hardly 10 mins. I used my 3 yrs old Transcend 2GB pendrive, I am not sure whether that is good enough or should I go for 4GB pendrive?.
Then I set boot prefrences on my laptop to USB.
Booting from USB worked instantly, it threw several options and I chose the 2nd option where I ran Zorin without saving changes. I am not sure whether it is correct way to run or not. But Zorin did boot fine, speed was amazing. I got Zorin booted but sound was not working, so rythmbox couldnt play anything (It did play but I could not hear). I dont know How to get sound card working, may be driver compatibility problem with OS (not new for linux distros).
VLC player played fine but no sound.
Zorin Skin changer did not work, I guess it needs full installation.

My main problem is how to set my wired broadband connection working on this OS? I hoped that it would detect the connection and settings automatically and will work but didnt.

Overall look is fresh and feel is zippy. I would also like to know that in what matters running live from USB is limited compared to fully installed OS on a dedicated partition?
I have 3 partitions C= Primary, where Win 7 sits, D and E logical drive all NTFS. Apart from these I have system recovery partition and another hidden 15GB partition. Is it possible to install Zorin on D or E drive? I can dedicate E drive which is about 117GB.
I have seen all Linuxes do not support optimized battery performance. I have about 6-7hr battrey run time but while running on linux it shows almost half time with almost same percentage of charge holding (i.e. 3 hrs). Is there any way to tweak this?
Sorry for shooting many questions in a single thread but I am new here and bit confused about this forum layout too.

Thanks in advance

Atindra

fyi...i ran zorin6core on a usb and i dont have sound either. but i tested zorin6lite and voila! i have sound. i dont know why but it works, and i have mine working with perisistence

@swarfendor437

Thanks for detailed reply. I got the point regarding battery for laptop. I guess I would better use it on my desktop. Though strangely bootable USB with Zorin did not boot on my desktop, despite the boot preference being "Removable Drive". I guess I may have to go for Live DVD.
My main query was about difference in running Zorin live from DVD or Pendrive and in installing it on HDD.

I got the point about partitioning. My E drive doesnt contain any program file or configuration files etc. It is purely being used for dumping data, mostly movies, music and photos.
Now regarding internet connection, I too find it strange because when I tried Ubuntu 11.0 on my Desktop PC few months back and then I was using ADSL Modem for a broadband connection through phone line and it worked fine. Now I am using a fibre optic based broadband connection where cable directly goes into ehternet port of my PC/laptop and no need of modem. Another thing is Zorin did pickup my MAC address. Other settings too are same as you shown on those screen shots.

Regards,

Atindra