If you dont mind please..humbly looking for direction

Welcome, chemdoctor, welcome!

I certainly appreciate someone who's done a bit of research before stopping by and asking a question and who's not afraid to err on the side of over-exposition to make sure they communicate what it is that they are after. That being said, let me try to field each question/concern/statement in turn.

I think mu33rto did a fine job of covering the details of partition resizing and hardware support, as well as the fine option of testing via a virtual machine first (since partition massaging can sometime necessitate reinstallation of the existing OS)

If you'd like to try it out on actual hardware, I have seen the best luck on Vista and 7 by using the in-Windows disk manager to resize the partition to free up some space to be used by the Linux you plan to use.

As far as HW compatibility, again, as mu33rto pointed out, pretty much everything supported by Win7 is supported by Linux, but you could always try the "LiveCD" (an OS install that lives completely on a CD or DVD and doesn't touch your internal storage unless you tell it to install) to check for hardware issues (if you see any, either Google to find an answer or stop by here and let us know)

All of the installers of modern distributions ("distros") are extremely accessible and walk you through the installation process (including: shrinking the Windows partition and setting up the disk (however, this resize will usually necessitate running a disk check next time you boot Windows, hence my suggestion above), a general selection of programs/services/applications to install, timezone, user account setup, etc.) Some examples of the install process are: Ubuntu (and kin), Fedora (and kin)

Judging by your needs and expectations from your computer, I have a feeling that you will enjoy Linux (you've already accepted that, while many things are similar to Windows, there are differences, which this realization alone is a major hurdle for new users). In the time you spend getting used to the changes, Google or your search engine of choice is your best ally (you are not the first person to run into the issue you are seeing  )

Fedora is a fine choice, but beware that once you start digging in and adding new software, the SELinux framework may start getting in the way (SELinux is a rough equivalent to UAC, but covers more aspects than just program access privileges, it can be modified to allow what you need or disabled altogether).

Life Hacker put together a pretty good beginner's resource in a series of articles titled, aptly (pun most definitely intended) Getting Started with Linux

So, just to wrap up: My first suggestion is to try out a VM to get accustomed to the look and feel and the installation process (so it's less of a surprise later). If you want to install to actual HW, then I suggest using Windows itself to resize the partition to make way for Linux, if that doesn't work then you may use either the installation media itself (as you see in the install walkthroughs, most distros give you a chance to resize the existing partition) but note that Windows may complain and force a disk check. And finally, of course, feel free to stop by and ask questions when they come up (if you can't find something via searching online), chat about what you like/dislike about it, etc.