THAT is the market that Linux-for-the-desktop is now courting. Linux already HAD you, when it wasn't trying to be anything more than geek-joy. But now, it's looking for some real market- mind-share.
Notice you said early that people buy their computers pre-installed with Windows. This is one of the two reasons why Windows seem to be easier for them. The other being familiarity- they have used it before in school or at the office. Have you ever seen newbies trying to install and use Windows? They have just as many problems as with Linux.
Even more. I saw some of them once trying to install Windows 98, because the previous Win98 was filled with garbage. They were not able to format and use partitions correctly, mainly because the windows installer did not do that and because the windows installer reported "space insufficient" instead of "disk not formatted". This is how windows is better than Linux. Praise