I am certain many of you have been upset with the performance Windows exhibits at times. What are alternatives? Buy a Mac? Not really, you already spent the money on your computer, spent money on your Operating System and now you certainly don't want to buy an even more expensive system.
Your only option here is to give a Linux Distribution a test drive and see if it matches your needs. From our personal experience we can say Linux is these days a real alternative to the Windows mainstream, is easy to set up and offers great functionality and performance. By creating a bootable Linux USB drive you have a fully functional operating system in your pocket. Read the wikipedia article for further details and download links.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNetbootin