Don't know if this will help. Just my 2 cents.
http://lowendbox.com/blog/cheapwindowsv ... s-angeles/
There are other variants as well on that site, most of them on Linux. This is the only one i found for windows. The linux environment is not so different or difficult provided you've had some little experience of running linux on your systems.
Just for the kick, i ran ubuntu 12.04 on my local machine along with all the Empty4 stuff that i usually do. All went fine except a very little here and there. Nothing i couldn't live with. I switched back to Windows after about 6 months of experiment coz i could not get around to creating an extended horizontal desktop for my dual screen setup that i use. In Windows environment, extended desktop is kids play.
Do keep us posted if you get a break through.
Cheers,
