This is sort of equivalent to trying out a different version of Windows -- except it's a different version of Linux.
I've been a user of a "window manager" called KDE for about a decade now. Of the various window managers it looks most like Microsoft Windows.
The version of Linux I've been using for the past 2 or 3 years is called Kubuntu. This is based on a very popular desktop Linux system for users called Ubuntu, using KDE instead of Ubuntu's Gnome. Gnome does some fancy things (semi-transparent windows -- I'm not certain if KDE has that now) but it requires a fairly high-performance machine.
RIght now I'm playing with Xubuntu, which uses a lightweight window manager called XFCE (I forget what that stands for). That means there's less "flash" to it, but it should also be snappier -- and to be sure, Kubuntu was never quick on this old machine.
We'll see... I have some tests to run.
Yah. The tests. THAT will keep you busy for a bit!