I know that LaTeX is big in the world of academia, and was probably a big name in desktop publishing before the glory days of WordPerfect and Microsoft Office but as a Windows user that is interested in the power of LaTeX and the general smoothness of a LaTeX generated page is it really worth learning?

In a couple of months I'll be starting my final year in Computer Science and LaTeX has been bounced around the campus by many of the Linux geeks. In reality, is there any need to use it today? What will I actually gain from it and will I enjoy using it?

Finally, how does one use LaTeX on a Windows machine? What software do I really need? I've read a couple of guides but many of them seem like overkill.

Please help break a LaTeX newbie into the world of professional academic publishing!

EDIT: I've toyed with LaTeX for a while, and have even learned that it's pronounced "lay-tech", not "lay-tecks". I'll agree once again with the accepted answer in saying that MiKTeX is the best solution for Windows users.