DOS is the main issue with Windows. Every Release has a dos command prompt. In Win 8 & up there is a node created in the registry. This is not the same as a kernel . Unix,Linux and many other open source operating systems run on the kernel module. This gives the user the ability to effectively lock down open ports,SCSI adapters, and a variety of other useful security commands.DOS is a limited operating system(Dynamic Operating System) that Windows uses to communicate with your CPU. This leaves a system vulnerable to many types of attacks. My suggestion would be a Ubuntu partiton for a beginner. You can still have a partition for windows as secondary.