If you install a distro that uses KDE Plasma, you're already most of the way there. Not just because of it's design similarities to Windows but it's the desktop environment that's been getting the most financial support lately and has seen the most rapid improvement.

I personally prefer it at this point. Dolphin blows away explorer, window management is more slick and more flexible out of the box and it also happens to be deeply customizable.

The ASUS laptop I bought has a litany of issues: blue screens, audio dying, won't wake from sleep. MSFT, Nvidia and ASUS all blame each other.

I have a feeling modern Linux on this machine wouldn't be worse than what it shipped with. The days of fighting for 3 days with audio or printer drivers after an install are mostly behind us.