Infrastructure Software

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask such question(s) but I don't know another, so I'll just ask ahead and hope for someone kind enough to asnwer my question(s).

I've been using Microsoft operating systems since forever, and I've been following the progress of Solaris 10 since quite a while and I'm getting more and more impressed everyday. Now I want to imigrate to Solaris 10, but I don't know what do, I'm afraid that I'll be over my head since I have no experience or whatsoever in Solaris nor Linux based systems. I keep thinking "What would I do? Would I have to start from scartch? What about my data on the NTFS partitions will it even be accessible in the new OS?". I think these are not unreasonable questions.

My needs from the OS are simple, I don't need to manage servers or complex secured networks, All I want is to be able to use it efficiently...access the internet (shared internet connection), watch my media files, play my games. These are simple needs of any user.

And what about the software, do I start looking for alternatives for every single application that I've been using or is there another way? I've been hearing a lot lately about the Sun-Microsoft cooperation regarding interoperability, but I don't really know what is the extent of the compatability between Solaris and Windows based systems.

Thanks in advance for anyone kind enough to help me answer my questions or at least point me to the right direction.