The HP laptop I bought last Summer came with Windows 10 already installed, I played with this 'new' operating system for about a month before deciding (after many registry hacks (and a few re-installs) to try to get rid of its desperate need to call Microsoft to have it's hand held, whilst playing kiss and tell at the same time) that Microsoft's new baby had to leave home!
I installed Opensuse and Windows 7 on the laptop as a dual boot system (the W7 install was the most difficult, but that is another story) and everything works just fine.
Just backing up catweasel's comment earlier about Linux as a Windows replacement, Mint, Ubuntu (and its family) and Opensuse (and a few others) are mature enough as Operating Systems to transition from Windows with only a little effort, normal users are very unlikely to have to resort to using command line instructions nowadays and the desktop environment can even look a lot like a version of Windows if required. (We won't mention that Apple OS X is essentially Linux with a pretty wrapper and has been adored by Apple users for how easy it is to use!)
Unless a user HAS to use an application that will only run under a version of Windows the transition to a Linux system is far easier now than ever before, and it is free - for everyone