not going to tell you what to do or not to do, but a recommendation, that I can give.
Or you could bribe us! It doesn't even have to be money - if you can send me Karen Gillan's phone number then I won't mention politics here ever again
Regarding dropping Windows, I've been reading about ReactOS (via
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS ), an open source, Windows compatible operating system. It does seem very interesting, but according to the Wikipedia page:
"
ReactOS has been in development since 1996. As of April 2024, it is still considered feature-incomplete alpha software, and is therefore recommended by the developers only for evaluation and testing purposes.[11][12] However, many Windows applications are working, such as Adobe Reader 9.3, GIMP 2.6, and LibreOffice 5.4."
So of course it's very far from being the fully Windows compatible, open source (and totally free from Microsoft's controls) alternative to MS's invasive, resource stealing, every update is a guessing game in what it will break, modern Windows versions. Still an interesting thing to read about, and maybe in an alternative universe many of us are happily using ReactOS to run our Windows games and non-gaming software.
And in that great universe, I bet they are playing System Shock 3, Dishonored 3 (or 4),Prey 2 (the sequel to the 2017 Prey game), Half-Life 3, Portal 3, No One Lives Forever 3, Perfect Dark 2, Timesplitters 4, Bioshock 3 (or 4, or, if that universe is *really* great, then they have Bioshock 3 AND 4, and they still have Bioshock: Infinite, which kept all of the good stuff that was removed from our version of Infinite, and is a superb, ground-breaking genre-defining classic, instead of the very pretty but shallow disappointment of Bioshock: Infinite that we were given), and so on. And in that universe, Microsoft never bought (then ruined) Rare, Microsoft didn't break up Arkane Austin, and Microsoft would never think of anything as stupid or unwelcome to the users as Recall.
And in that universe, Duke Nukem Forever came out around 2001, and was really good. I bet they're playing the equally great Duke Nukem 8 by now.