Do you know about partitioning? If you already have windows installed and you install linux to a different partition it should automaticly set up dual booting.

Theres way too much software that runs on linux to have a list... the thing is, some programs will not work (im not sure about adobe products) on linux, but there will be alternatives for linux that do the same. Also, when you use dual boot you can just go into windows if you need to use certain programs. And there is a thing called Wine that lets you run some windows software in linux but i don't know much about that.

Linux does work a bit different from windows. The basics like browsing, text editing, whatever are just like in windows but administration and more advanced stuff usually require some knowledge of how linux works. This includes installing drivers and sometimes software (if the software doesn't come with an installer or something). Fortunately, there is lots and lots of info on the internet so you just need to search for a tutorial if you don't know something. Many things will be done using the console, which is like the dos prompt in windows.

Prepare for some confusion and getting used to stuff, but some things are easier too. Some things are very different like the harddrive structure (in windows you get C: D: etc, in linux they are assigned a name. First your harddisks are categorised in \hd0, \hd1 etc, then the partitions like \hd0\boot, \hd0\data etc. CD will be \cd0. This is how linux manages devices, so your LAN card will be \eth0

You don't need any programming knowledge, and depending on what you want to do you may need some knowledge of linux which you will have to learn. Using programs is usually not a problem, but getting things to work requires some time if you havent ever done it before. However, once you know how, getting things done is much easier than in windows.