Why would you lose files because you switch to Linux? When I switched I just put my old windows hard drive in my computer and copied them - which is the same thing I would have done with a new Windows installation.

I don't know if that's still possible. That was in the FAT32 days. But I'm sure that it's still possible to transfer files from one computer to another.

I was indicating what an average user might be, not commenting on the feasibility of migrating to Linux.