That effort can be a joy or a royal pain in the neck, depending on how you handle it
For most of us a Chromebook will do the job. A big downside can be connecting a printer, which is no problem whatsoever in Windows.l
So for a Chromebook a new printer may be needed, especially one of the HPs which can actually be plugged in. Otherwise you will need to deal with a Wi-Fi set up
On the other hand, Windows may be needed for publishing a book or other such work.
Windows 10 is no longer an obstacle but has been much improved. One downside of Windows is that if you no longer have your product key for Windows Office, you will need to fork out $100 for a new copy. unless you can get by with Wordpad and the like.
There are quite a few things you can do ahead of time to make the transition easier.
You need to gather together product keys for software you need to reinstall. You'll need a list of logins and passwords.
the easiest way to transfer your documents, photos and music is to send them up to the cloud and then back down to your new computer, or just access them remotely. You can also use flash drives for this purpose but it will take more time. I keep a flash drive of my music and photos in my safe deposit box
Photos are indeed best sent to the cloud where they are accessible anywhere. The transfer will take time.
The transfer also reminds that many more things will be done with your smartphone that you formally needed a computer for.
I do much of my printing from a smartphone because it is easier.
Maybe you do not need any computer at all but just a smartphone. Think about that.
Computers offer a larger screen, of course. My laptops are hooked up to 24 in TVs which also serve as displays. One is a Fire TV and the other is a Roku.
By the way, with many users Wi-Fi has gotten too slow and I use adapters to connect direct to my router.
Whatever I am doing, I do as much as possible with voice, such as this posting, done with my smartphone.
It is often a bother to go to the computer when I have the smartphone with me do handle almost everything I need to do.
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