another thing to mention,,,

There are open source programs not only made for Linux now there are versions made for MS Windows also.
FREE -
Open Office is like MS Office
http://www.openoffice.org/

more here- you can filter the results by operating system -
games, educational,word processing
look thru the list on the right side of the page
http://sourceforge.net/softwaremap/t...p?form_cat=131

so you can still have windows but use free & comparable programs to the MS stuff
I use the Open Office & have some of the card games too.