You guys need to learn how to buy MS products. Student discount is where it's at. Using my sister's discount, I'm buying Office XP and FrontPage 2002 for $35, the Office XP upgrade for $25, and Visual Studio .NET Professional ($950 :eek

, for $30
Building a PC is more complicated, because Linux supports certain hardware, but not others. Windows also has compatability issues, as you noticed with your DVD.
Get a Mac. It's built with a UNIX backbone, but still has a GUI that's easy to use, and a lot of the more common programs to Windows users. Linux is great, but it's a lot more complicated to figure out. And even after I figured it out, I still would never switch completely. Let's put it this way, Linux ain't for beginners by any means. And you might want to get a new drive and install Linux to see if it's what you really want. From my experiences, I can easily say it's not something most people would want to use daily.