I commend you for your openness to try Linux. However, I must point out that
Linux is a different environment. There is no way to be 100% Windows compatible
because Linux is meant to be an alternative to Windows. There are many open
source programs that are as good or in many cases better than commercial Windows
programs. The best approach therefore is to move 100% to Linux and leave Windows
and its programs behind.

This is possible, but in many cases people desire to have a foot in both worlds
for various reasons. The good news is that it is possible to reach a degree of
Windows compatibility in Linux. The bad news is that it is not 100% and it may
take more effort on your part than it would take to just learn to use open
source Linux programs.

There are a couple options. One is to install a program in Linux called Wine. It
allows you to run many Windows programs inside Linux, but it can get ugly at
times and it often leaves people unsatisfied, however it does work with many
programs such as Internet Explorer, MS Office and Photoshop. Other programs
including many games do not behave at all under Wine.

The second option is to use a virtual machine. You need a fairly recent computer
with lots of RAM and a good video card to make this a viable choice. In this
case you set up a virtual machine using a program such as VMWare Server or
VirtualBox to set up a virtual drive and you install Windows to that drive. This
is technically illegal since Microsoft does not want Windows installed on VMs.
You need a valid copy of Windows to install on the VM and it behaves and acts
just like Windows. You can install any program inside Windows and it behaves
just as it would normally.

This gives you 100% compatibility, sort of. Games and other programs that
require lots of resources may not work at all because they cannot use all of the
processor or memory. Sound can become choppy or video not work.
You can allot the amount of RAM and video RAM to the VM that you want, but you
need to remember that you have a computer working inside a computer. The host
will consume resources so you are limited to what you can do.

To decide what option works best for you depends on what equipment you have and
what compromises you are willing to make. As I said at the start the best option
may be you just do without Windows at all. Many Linux users come from Windows
backgrounds and we seldom see the need to boot into Windows at all. Which brings
me to the third option which is to dual boot, that is to share your drive with
Windows and Linux and re-booting as necessary into the OS that you need. This
too can be accomplished in more than one way. Linux is (if nothing else)
flexible.