> Why is Windows a nightmare? I use Windows 10 on a PC I built and it's fine.
Buy any consumer machine with Windows 10 and it comes with so much pre-loaded doodoo, that it takes a couple hours to purge it down to the basics. In fact, so much so, that there are a myriad of scripts to help do this [0].
What's good about modern Windows, after it activated it binds to hardware. So you need to run it once connected to the Internet, ensure that it's activated. Then download Windows ISO from microsoft.com and reinstall it. It'll just work.
Another good thing about modern Windows is that it downloads all the necessary drivers after the first boot and Internet connection. Gamers might want to install latest GPU drivers, but that's not necessary for most people. And those drivers usually do not come with bloatware.
At least that was my experience with few computers. Reinstalling takes 3-5 minutes and downloading drivers takes 5-10 minutes depending on hardware and connection speed. Definitely faster than couple of hours.
The only thing that needed to be uninstalled is ads from Microsoft, but that's another 5 minutes: just navigate Settings/Apps and uninstall those unwanted games. They do not reappear in my experience.
So I haven't tried this lately, but the last time I did, resetting windows this way did reset it... to the bloated crapware fest that the vendor had delivered it as. Did that change?
Buy any consumer machine with Windows 10 and it comes with so much pre-loaded doodoo, that it takes a couple hours to purge it down to the basics. In fact, so much so, that there are a myriad of scripts to help do this [0].
0 https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10