So will a vegan. :) I wonder how many vegans use Linux.

"Somehow".. they forced it on most users via tricks in Win7 updates and other s**t.

Agreed, but I'm sure there are users out there that updated voluntarily, others had little to no choice (or knowledge) in the matter (if 10 came pre-installed on their PCs), some simply like it as it is and are excited for the future.
I remember I had to filter updates in Windows 7 in order to avoid the update.
I should have pointed the sarcasm when I wrote "somehow".

Weirdly that's quite the opposite of what they're doing... Most people I know use Windows only out of necessity. Up until Windows 7 most were really excited about each new iteration - not any more... Some people had been looking forward to 10, just because 8 had that horrible UI, but "loving and wanting"? Until they do 180 that won't happen again...

That seems to be my observation as well. My knowledge of Windows ended with Windows 98 SE but I remember when users were excited to be using or try Windows 95 and Windows 98 in general. Somewhere around the debut of SE it began to wane in the communities that I was a part of.

Overall, I was content with 8.1, despite its uninspired UI and all the metro apps, which were easy to uninstall anyway. As opposed to 10, it had a small footprint in resource usage. For instance, following a brief config after a fresh install I would end up with roughly 30 processes using somewhere around 0.7 GB RAM. 10 on the other hand runs well over 100 processes which amount for more than 1.3 GB RAM. I think that is quite the difference, especially for older hardware.
Also, 8.1, at least from my experience, was well optimised for gaming, no major issues at all.

Good news :)

But I don't think Linux wants to take over...note the decentralised nature of development/distribution, the lack of walled-garden features, the lack of telemetry phoning home to a company who does who knows what with your data.

Come to think of it, I don't want anyone to take over.

Yep, I was looking for to 10 after havin 8 and 8.1, which was pretty bad all over. Not as bad as Vista, but that’s just an order on the Bristol Stool Scale between the two. I do agree, I don’t love using or look forward to it, but it does what I want, just make sure you get the pro version to have some control.
First thing I do, get geek uninstall and remove all the bloatware (that includes edge, IE). In fact pretty much everything goes except notepad (which is quite useful). Then set every privacy option to max private. Then install openshell, then turn updates to as I allow it, and finally force other telemetry one drive etc. off. When that’s all done Win 10 is a charm, no problems. Sure could probably get the with Linux, and if it was 30 years ago I would put the effort in...

Well 8 with the ugly tiles of Metro UI was pretty clearly developed as a mobile OS. So they tried a smaller resource footprint. Problem was, in its time it was still too heavy for real mobile devices, but it was horrible to use as a desktop OS without mods like ClassicShell.

I think with W10 MS has new pretty much given up on mobile and has decided to let Google/Androis and Apple/iOS duke it out. No the need to save space and power has declined.
Still W10 can be made rather small and frugal with some tinkering. The "unified platform" roots are still in there.

To make W10 usable again it would take two things:
- Force MS to make it GDPR compliant. The EU could enforce this. Nowadays with every medical or judical practice, every public office running W10 it's basically an impossible situation. Everyone does it, but it's not really legal...
- MS needs to get their act together and dramatically improve the quality. A lot of the really severe issues like erasing user data or the infamous BSODs, update-loop-of-death and the likes were actually known from the public betas. Nevertheless MS released them in their broken state - and many updates had to be pulled again. I mean, they are not some small-time garage company, they do have the resources for QA - they simply don't do it.

Add to that some decent UI (non-flat, real buttons) and I might actually like the system.
Actually Vista was just an unfinished 7 they had to throw out because of contracts. It wasn't even so bad, and it looked pretty dandy for the time. It just had some severe issues like the horrible slow Explorer which were making daily work a real pain.

I've been planning to get into Linux "soon" for ages. Too little time and too much choice and then again too little time. I've been using Windows since 1994 (Win 3.1) and I'm actually a fan of some things MS created (like .NET or VS (where quality has sadly also dropped a lot)).

LTSC seems to be the most favoured when it comes to some semblance of control over the system. That, or Ameliorated. Both strip some unnecessary features and by the looks of it they are far better options than Pro. That being said, it's a trade-off. LTSC is not exactly intended for personal, day to day use, it is also expensive, whereas AME is not that popular, for several reasons. Still, they managed to remove a considerable amount of junk.
I guess for regular use the most common recommendation would be Pro, tweaked of course.
The big problem, as I see it, is the fact that no matter how much time and effort you put in customising your experience (removing bloatware, configuring privacy settings and so on), there is always a crack in the system. It will still phone home, it will still trigger certain processes. A great deal of control can be achieved with a proper firewall, something to consider there. For those of you interested, I suggest having a look at Simplewall. Props to the devs for making a portable version as well.

As far as I'm aware, Microsoft did not flinch when it came to GDPR.
European authorities managed to fine Google though, twice in the past couple of years, most notably in 2019 for €50 million. Still, I highly doubt EU's willingness or ability to enforce proper regulations, especially when it comes to MS.

ClassicShell used to be the first program I would install. A real time and sanity saver. I still keep it on a flash drive, alongside other programs that I consider essential.

I have a different view on that.

Windows 8/8.1 was Microsoft trying to push a "touch-friendly" tablet user interface to PC users in one big swoop, kind of trying to accommodate desktop PC users what e.g. Windows RT feels like. It was clear in many Microsoft's pitch talks back then that they felt that is where the PC users should be heading over time, to Windows RT.

Maybe I still have bookmarked that article by one MS boss who said back then that the future is touch-devices, and in the near-ish future mouse+keyboard will be used only by programmers and maybe novel writers, while common home users etc. would use Surface Windows RT devices and such, without a physical keyboard and a mouse.

After Microsoft saw that desktop PC users were not that happy with Windows 8/8.1 and were not adopting Windows RT devices en masse, they introduced Windows 10 which went halfway back towards the mouse/keyboard-centric user interface, that people were happy in Windows 7, Vista and XP. One of the bigger visual backpedalings being introducing back the Start menu that doesn't take your whole screen, like it did in Windows 8.

I say "halfway" because you can clearly see that Windows 10 is split between the "legacy" and "new" interfaces, and the division between them isn't as clear as in Windows 8/8.1. That also makes the user interface somewhat confusing as sometimes you end up to the "legacy" interface and sometimes to the newer one. Quite often the "advanced" options are hidden into the different-looking legacy interface.

So if anything, it it Windows 10 that is currently the interim stop-gap OS, kind of halfway between Windows 7 and Windows 10 X, Windows Cloud etc. How long it will stay like that, who knows. MS plans seem to change all the time and they are closely following how well people are adopting moving to Windows 10 X devices, Azure cloud etc., and make decisions based on that.

MS has already changed their focus related to e.g. UWP so many times. At some point they were pushing it very hard, at some point it was touted on many articles MS is killing off UWP, etc. etc. They keep trying different ideas (Windows RT, Windows 10 S, next Windows 10 X) to see if people start adopting them, and I see all those as signs of MS trying to nudge Windows PC users away from generic PCs, and away from Win32 (= "Windows API", not meaning only "32-bit") applications to which MS constantly refers as "legacy applications". "Legacy", something of which users should grow out over time.

It just doesn't (didn't) make sense! What about the huge professional (office) market? A touch interface is (for most purposes) far from ideal for productivity.

I use a physical keyboard (desktop) for typing this message - It's a lot faster than an onscreen keyboard.

How evil or not evil Microsoft is has little relevance to the point that Linux is on an irrelevant amount of desktops and gaming PCs. Maybe if MS tries to kill 32 bit or whatever that will change, but the situation today is what it is.

This is a Forbes article titled Oops! Five CEOs Who Should Have Already Been Fired dating back to May 2012. Can you guess who is at number 1?
And here's another article, pointing at MS shift throughout the years
https://www.idginsiderpro.com/article/3584911/how-microsoft-went-from-linux-is-a-cancer-to-microsoft-loves-linux.html